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Introducing Stargate UK

openai.com

11–20 of 78 posts

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#11

This kind of science/tech investment is and has been catnip for UK government, regardless of political party, for years. They're out of ideas to stimulate growth, and AI is their hail Mary. No one involved seems to be able to explain why it will work.

>They're out of ideas to stimulate growth

You've gotta help us doc. We've tried nothing and we're all out ideas

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#12
post #8

Is the “Stargate” naming here just another attempt to mislead/allude to the Stargate Project that was announced a couple of months ago?

Absolutely. Exactly like the Stargate datacenters being built in the US have no affiliation with the Stargate project because Oracle is not involved in them. Just another way trying to make that big announcement credible without anything being done for that 500B project.

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#14
This is so sad. Like an addict who is hoping for that easy win to get them out of the terrible hole they are in...

This government (as the last, to be fair) is betting on unproven technology they barely understand and sometimes horribly misunderstand rather than making tough policy decisions.

The parts of this that actually materialise are very probably a good thing for the country, but this should really be business as usual. Alongside that I hear MPs, government ministers and commentators alike saying things like "when AI allows us to make vast efficiency gains in that government department...", "AI will obviously help to reinvigorate the Welsh economy...", "with AI we will be able to transition our industry to clean energy quicker..." (?!)

The fact that this very much feels like the country is lucky to have Nvidia/OpenAI rather than vice versa just demonstrates how badly managed the UK is.

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#15

This kind of science/tech investment is and has been catnip for UK government, regardless of political party, for years. They're out of ideas to stimulate growth, and AI is their hail Mary. No one involved seems to be able to explain why it will work.

Ok let’s assume that AI will be a game changer. How does hosting it in the UK change anything? Just feels like something to brag about, but doesn’t have any impact. The UK is suffering from persistently expensive electricity ( https://grid.iamkate.com/ , see All-Time). How does hosting AI data centres help with that?

In Norway I've noticed that stringent requirements for privacy make it much easier to run things in the cloud if the physical location of said cloud is actually in Norway.

So if OpenAI is hosting their services within the borders of the UK, then they would also be beholden to UK law. Makes it easier for the financial sector, government and healthcare to use their AI models than if they would have to send their data to a datacenter in the US.

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#16
OpenAI seem very non-commital about the whole thing. They will "explore offtake", which effectively means they'll think about it. This lack of commitment in a world where we seemingly can't build new data centers fast enough is a bit worrying. They clearly anticipate scenarios in which they won't want this capacity either because of poor pricing or lack of demand.

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#17
Given https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukusa-agreement-o... , what does sovereignty even mean here?

I also wish we were attracting industries that weren't going to significantly push up electricity consumption on windless days, which will have an outsized effect on electricity prices everyone else pays. At least this says the datacentres will be up north, hopefully not exacerbating transmission issues.

Re: Introducing Stargate UK

#18

This kind of science/tech investment is and has been catnip for UK government, regardless of political party, for years. They're out of ideas to stimulate growth, and AI is their hail Mary. No one involved seems to be able to explain why it will work.

Yes, all the usual suspects (politicians and political pundits of all stripes) have moved seamlessly from “the green revolution” to AI.

It’s all irrelevant to the fundamental economic problems the country is facing, which do not have an easy solution.

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