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Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

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Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#431

So its not the hype anymore?

Softbank historically had been late to buy into the hype, but man do they buy big.

I hope the Japanese government demands seismic isolation for Softbank, otherwise it will be the Japanese citizens who have to foot the bill when this hype hits the ground and shakes hard the Japanese economy :/

Softbank should not be allowed to invest more than ARM Holdings sold at a loss.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#432
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MGX is an arm of the United Arab Emirates' sovereign wealth operation: https://www.mgx.ae/en

I feel like that, along with SoftBank's investment, tell me everything about how serious this project is.

What do you mean?

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#433

Why is Larry Ellison giving a speech about the power of AI to cure disease? How is Oracle relevant at all to any of AI progress in the past few years?

Oracle purchased Cerner which is now sitting on a ton of healthcare data.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#434
I hear this joked about sometimes or used as a metaphor, but in the literal sense of the phrase, are we in a cold war right now? These types of dollars feel "defense-y", if that makes sense. Especially with the big focus on energy, whatever that ends up meaning. Defense as a motivation can get a lot done very fast so it will be interesting to watch, though it raises the hair on my arms

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#435

~$125B per year would be 2-3% of all domestic investment. It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country. If the electric grid — particularly the interconnection queue — is already the bottleneck to data center deployment, is something on this scale even close to possible? If it's a rationalized policy framework (big if!), I would guess there's some major permitting reform announcement coming soon.

They say this will include hundreds of thousands of jobs. I have little doubt that dedicated power generation and storage is included in their plans. Also I have no doubt that the timing is deliberate and that this is not happening without government endorsement. If I had to guess the US military also is involved in this and sees this initiative as important for national security.

Just as there is an AWS for the public, with something similar but only for Federal use, so it could be possible that there is AI cloud services available to the public and then a separate cloud service for Federal use. I am sure that military intelligence agencies etc. would like to buy such a service.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#436

I hear this joked about sometimes or used as a metaphor, but in the literal sense of the phrase, are we in a cold war right now? These types of dollars feel "defense-y", if that makes sense. Especially with the big focus on energy, whatever that ends up meaning. Defense as a motivation can get a lot done very fast so it will be interesting to watch, though it raises the hair on my arms

Absolutely

for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_telecommuni...

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#437

This could potentially trigger an AI arms race between the US and China. The standard has been set, lets see what China responds with. Either way, it will accelerate the arrival of ASI, which in my opinion is probably a good thing.

It will be similar to the space race between Soviet Union and US. And just like Soviet Union going broke and collapsing, China too will go even more broke and collapse.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#438

I'm confused and a bit disturbed; honestly having a very difficult time internalizing and processing this information. This announcement is making me wonder if I'm poorly calibrated on the current progress of AI development and the potential path forward. Is the key idea here that current AI development has figured out enough to brute force a path towards AGI? Or I guess the alternative is that they expect to figure…

"There are maybe a few hundred people in the world who viscerally understand what's coming. Most are at DeepMind / OpenAI / Anthropic / X but some are on the outside. You have to be able to forecast the aggregate effect of rapid algorithmic improvement, aggressive investment in building RL environments for iterative self-improvement, and many tens of billions already committed to building data centers. Either we're all wrong, or everything is about to change." - Vedant Misra, Deepmind Researcher.

Maybe your calibration isn't poor. Maybe they really are all wrong but there's a tendency here to these these people behind the scenes are all charlatans, fueling hype without equal substance hoping to make a quick buck before it all comes crashing down, but i don't think that's true at all. I think these people really genuinely believe they're going to get there. And if you genuinely think that, them this kind of investment isn't so crazy.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#439

> The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. Wouldn't a more northern state be a better location given the average temperatures of the environment? I've heard Texas is hot!

I think cheap power (whether gas turbines or massive solar farms) trumps any cooling efficiencies gained by locating in a cold climate.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#440

I hear this joked about sometimes or used as a metaphor, but in the literal sense of the phrase, are we in a cold war right now? These types of dollars feel "defense-y", if that makes sense. Especially with the big focus on energy, whatever that ends up meaning. Defense as a motivation can get a lot done very fast so it will be interesting to watch, though it raises the hair on my arms

The US government and its media partners sure seem to think so.
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