Stargate – Such a project would force a radical new approach to energy, water, and power consumption for the future of AI data centers, including possibly accelerating humanity’s approach to Nuclear Fusion.
By Michael Spencer
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is looking to fast-track talks with tech companies as their demands for electricity to power artificial intelligence data centers continue to grow.
A “Stargate” AI supercomputer of the scale that Microsoft might be proposing would require better energy infrastructure and could in theory far exceed current computing power for future Generative AI systems. What a Moonshot for OpenAI this would be.
They want to launch “Stargate” in time for the technological singularity which some believe could take place in the 2028 to 2032 window.
“AI itself isn’t a problem, because AI could help to solve the problem.” – Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
The supposed AI Supercomputer would use millions of specialized server chips and could cost up to $100 billion, it is reported. Stargate is reportedly the fifth and final phase of Microsoft and OpenAI’s plan to build several supercomputers throughout the United States.
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This is all part of America’s plan to stay ahead of China and its allies in A.I. the DOE is exploring how energy-hungry tech firms might be able to host small nuclear plants on the campuses of their massive data centers.
This means BigTech is working more closely with the Government than we have ever seen before in the U.S.
Executives at both OpenAI and Microsoft have already drawn up plans for the data center project, which would power OpenAI’s artificial intelligence. OpenAI believes it is making rapid progress in what it terms AGI.
They say their mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence—AI systems that are generally smarter than humans—benefits all of humanity.
But by “AGI” OpenAI seems to only mean replacing median humans at their jobs and not a sentient system that can learn in a generalized way independently.
AGI is a moonshot for utopia according to OpenAI
If AGI is successfully created, this technology could help us elevate humanity by increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge that changes the limits of possibility.
AGI has the potential to give everyone incredible new capabilities; we can imagine a world where all of us have access to help with almost any cognitive task, providing a great force multiplier for human ingenuity and creativity. – Sam Altman.
It’s not clear what model of OpenAI would be running on Stargate if it is completed by 2028. Perhaps the equivalent of GPT-8. GPT-5 is believed to be the next closed-source LLM to be released.
It’s not however clear what will be the environmental, economic, and energy costs of this supposed AGI? AI and data centers are going to require a lot more energy, water, and resources.
Since Sam Altman plans to get funding from the UAE and perhaps Saudi Arabia via a16z, it’s also not clear if such a system would be a national security risk.
