Subj : An incredible $100 billion bet to get rid of Nvidia dependence  t
To   : All
From : TechnologyDaily
Date : Sun Apr 14 2024 07:15:05

An incredible $100 billion bet to get rid of Nvidia dependence  tech experts 
reckon Microsoft will build a million-server strong data center that will 
primarily use critical inhouse components

Date:
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 06:09:08 +0000

Description:
Microsoft and OpenAI planning to build a million-server strong data center 
with a AI supercomputer named "Stargate".

FULL STORY
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Microsoft and OpenAI are reportedly in the process of planning a 
groundbreaking data center project which would include an AI supercomputer 
named "Stargate. 

A report by Anissa Gardizy and Amir Efrati in The Information claims the goal 
of the project, which would be financed by Microsoft to the tune of over $100 
billion, and which reportedly has a launch date set for 2028, is to reduce 
the two companies' reliance on Nvidia, something that a lot of the tech 
giants involved in AI are increasingly looking to try to do. 

Microsoft and OpenAIs plan reportedly involves five phases, with Stargate 
being the fifth and most ambitious one. The data center will be the 
supercomputer 

The cost of the project is attributed to the age-old sources familiar with 
the plans" (The Information says these are a person who spoke to OpenAI CEO 
Sam Altman about it and a person who has viewed some of Microsofts initial 
cost estimates), but neither Microsoft nor OpenAI have yet commented on the 
specifics of the project. 

The new data center project is expected to push the boundaries of AI 
capability and could potentially exceed $115 billion in expenses. This is 
more than triple the amount Microsoft spent on capital expenditures for 
servers and equipment last year. Microsoft is currently working on a smaller, 
fourth-phase supercomputer for OpenAI that is expected to launch around 2026, 
The Information claims. 

Shedding more light on the report, The Next Platform says, The first thing to 
note about the rumored Stargate system that Microsoft is planning to build to 
support the computational needs of its large language model partner, OpenAI, 
is that the people doing the talking  reportedly OpenAI chief executive 
officer Sam Altman  are talking about a data center, not a supercomputer. And 
that is because the data center  and perhaps multiple data centers within a 
region with perhaps as many as 1 million XPU computational devices  will be 
the supercomputer. 

 The Next Platform also says if Stargate does come to fruition it will be 
based on future generations of Cobalt Arm server processors and Maia XPUs, 
with Ethernet scaling to hundreds of thousands to 1 million XPUs in a single 
machine, and it definitely won't be based on Nvidia GPUs and interconnects, 
which seems like a safe bet if the rumors are to be believed. More from 
TechRadar Pro OpenAI looking to build an AI chip empire worth more than AMD, 
Nvidia and intel OpenAI says 2024 is the "year of the enterprise" when it 
comes to AI Microsoft announces new AI hub in London



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Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/an-incredible-dollar100-billion-bet-to-get-rid-o
f-nvidia-dependence-tech-experts-reckon-microsoft-will-build-a-million-server-
strong-data-center-that-will-primarily-use-critical-inhouse-components


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