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OpenAI and Microsoft are reportedly planning a $100B supercomputer
Freethink ^ | 11 April 2024 | Kristin Houser

Posted on 04/19/2024 6:21:43 AM PDT by ShadowAce

Microsoft and OpenAI are reportedly planning to build a $100 billion data center and supercomputer that could lead to the creation of AIs far more capable than anything possible today.

Power hungry: Soon after investing its first $1 billion into OpenAI in 2019, Microsoft set out to solve one of the biggest challenges facing the AI firm: the need for a lot of processing power to train and run its generative AIs. 

That led to the creation of a custom supercomputer at Microsoft data centers in Iowa.

“These supercomputing systems are really the lifeblood of our research,” Katie Mayer, who manages the Microsoft partnership for OpenAI, said in September 2023. “To do the work that we’re doing at this scale and to develop really novel AI capabilities, you need these systems. They’ve really accelerated the rate of progress that we are all benefiting from now.”

Interior of a modern data center with rows of servers and yellow columns under bright lighting.

John Brecher / Microsoft

OpenAI’s custom supercomputing system in Iowa

The report: On March 29, the Information reported that OpenAI and Microsoft are planning to spend up to $100 billion on a new data center project containing a supercomputer with “millions of specialized server chips.”

The Information cited three anonymous sources it says have been involved in conversations about the project, including one who has spoken directly to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about it and one who has seen Microsoft’s eye-popping cost estimates.

According to the Information’s sources, the supercomputer is being called “Stargate,” and it could launch as soon as 2028. It might then be expanded over the course of two years, with the final version requiring as much as 5 gigawatts of power. (To put that in context, the largest nuclear power station in the US — Palo Verde in Arizona — has a total capacity of just 3.9 gigawatts.)

Microsoft is also considering building a different, smaller supercomputer for OpenAI in Wisconsin. It could launch as soon as 2026 and cost up to $10 billion.

OpenAI declined to comment on the report, while a Microsoft spokesperson issued a general statement that the company is “always planning for the next generation of infrastructure innovations needed to continue pushing the frontier of AI capability.”

Looking ahead: Seemingly little about the project has been decided, according to the Information — Microsoft and OpenAI are still contemplating where Stargate should be located, which computer chips and cables to use, and how to power the whole operation, with nuclear energy being one possibility.

Regardless of how the details shake out, if the project does come to fruition, the processing power it would provide OpenAI could lead to the development of AIs with capabilities we can only dream about today — and maybe even the first artificial general intelligence.


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: supercomputer
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To: Red Badger

When they shipped all the factory jobs to China and got rich in the process, the Wall Street types didn’t give a damn about middle America, now they are coming after their Wall Street jobs and AI will be the thing that eliminates those jobs.


21 posted on 04/19/2024 7:12:32 AM PDT by srmanuel ( )
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To: ShadowAce

H2G2, Name it Deep Thought. The answer is 42.

The sum of Paradise ( the sum of a pair of dice,)


22 posted on 04/19/2024 7:17:57 AM PDT by drSteve78 ( Older Je suis Deplorable. Even more so)
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To: Dr. Sivana

Re : Sinistar

I’m restoring one of those ... just got the boards up and running ... “RUN COWARD!!!!” :-). With it warming up, I should be able to get the cabinet done very soon.

I find as I get older, I am loving many games that used to slaughter me ... I have fallen in love with Defender and Robotron (always liked them, but have really gotten into them lately). I am getting better at Tempest. Only other one I want to master before I drop dead is Star Wars (the ‘83 Atari one ... not any of that junk that’s been released since :-) ).

Same goes with pinball ... many seemed to not like Steve Ritchie’s take on Star Wars ... I love it ... it’s frigging HARD, but when you blow up the Death Star, you *really* feel like you pulled off one hell of a stunt! :-)

Sorry for going off topic everyone else :-).


23 posted on 04/19/2024 8:24:34 AM PDT by edh
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To: srmanuel

Ross Perot was right. It’s just the direction of the ‘Giant Sucking Sound’ he got wrong. Not Mexico, but China....................


24 posted on 04/19/2024 8:41:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: jdsteel

https://bostondynamics.com/atlas/


25 posted on 04/19/2024 8:42:27 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Dr. Sivana

“RUN, Coward!”


26 posted on 04/19/2024 8:44:58 AM PDT by grey_whiskers ( The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

“RAAA-RRRRRRRRGGHHHH!!!”


27 posted on 04/19/2024 9:43:07 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana
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To: ShadowAce

That advanced AI they are planning to build is a very serious problem. I know that a lot a people are not yet up to speed on what has happened recently in the field, (even a lot of computer experts are not) but it is just like what happened in 1939-1945 with the atomic bomb. Before that it was all science fiction, and after 1945, it was suddenly real. The future is here, and it is all going to get very strange very fast.

I just got back from San Francisco last night from protesting at OpenAI. What they are working on now is called “AGI” or “Artificial General Intelligence.” They are intent on building an AI model that is fully equal to the best human in EVERY domain. Not just chess (happened quite a while ago already) but in every single area of human endeavor. If you think this is crazy, you are one of the many, many people who are behind the curve on this. We live in the post 1945 world were atomic energy is real. AI is now reality, and now AGI is coming in a few years. AGI is to the atomic bomb what the atomic bomb was to TNT. It is vastly more powerful, and it is almost here. What OpenAI and Microsoft and others are doing is extremely dangerous, most likely beyond what you would believe right now. But just like in 1945, suddenly, everything has changed forever. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is.


28 posted on 04/19/2024 9:51:28 AM PDT by Breitbart was right
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To: ShadowAce
Seemingly little about the project has been decided, according to the Information

The only thing known for sure is that it won't be running on MS-Windows

29 posted on 04/19/2024 11:54:37 AM PDT by zeugma (Stop deluding yourself that America is still a free country.)
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To: Breitbart was right

we are so screwed. i wonder just what can be done about it.


30 posted on 04/19/2024 1:57:28 PM PDT by markman46 (engage brain before using keyboard!!!)
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To: UnwashedPeasant

Still can’t manage to make Gates or Zuckerberg look lifelike.


31 posted on 04/21/2024 9:00:39 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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