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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

#801

Post by maxglute »

biimugan wrote: post #728

I really don't understand the national security argument. If you really do fear some fundamental breakthrough in AI from China, what's cheaper, $500 billion to rush to get there first, or spending a few billion (and likely much less) in basic research in physics, materials science, and electronics, mixed with a little bit of espionage, mixed with improving the electric grid and eliminating (or greatly reducing) fossi…

500B of compute infrastructure with order of magnitude greater deprecation / need to return on capital. Compute isn't concrete infra with 50+ years of value, more like 5 years, i.e. need to produce 50-100B worth value per year to break even. On top of the “$125B hole that needs to be filled for each year of CapEx at today’s levels” according to Sequoia. All which with could be wiped by PRC pacing SOTA model, unless 500B of more compute will lead to qualititive model differences. Right now, I don't know where that value is coming from, so either a lot of investors are getting fleeced, or this is a Manhattan tier strategic project... privately funded, which makes even less strategic sense.

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

#802

Post by unethical_ban »

roenxi wrote: post #649
mppm wrote: post #558

Apart from my general queasiness about the whole AGI scaling business and the power concentration that comes with it, these are the exact four people/entities that I would not want to be at the tip of said power concentration.

That sentiment calls for reflection - whoever ends up on top of the heap after the AI craze settles down is going to be someone that everyone objects to. Elon Musk was himself an internet darling up until he became wealthy and entrenched. That said, this does look like dreadful policy at the first headline. There is a lot of money going in to AI, adding more money from the US taxpayer is gratuitous. Although in the s…

Elon Musk was an internet darling when his top character trait was "space! EVs!". Then he went Kanye/alt-right and weaponized twitter. It didn't have to do with the fact he has a lot of money.

Many people dislike all billionaires, but some have escaped criticism more than others by successfully appearing to have some humanity left in them, like Gates and Cuban.

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

#803

Post by whimsicalism »

jiggawatts wrote: post #519
serjester wrote: post #194

You have to keep in mind Microsoft is planning on spending almost 100B in datacenter capex this year and they're not alone. This is basically OpenAI matching the major cloud provider's spending. This could also be (at least partly) a reaction to Microsoft threatening to pull OpenAI's cloud credits last year. OpenAI wants to maintain independence and with compute accounting for 25–50% of their expenses (currently) [2]…

Meanwhile, Azure has failed to keep up with the last 2-3 generations of both Intel and AMD server processors. They’re available only in “preview” or in a very limited number of regions. I wonder if this is a sign of the global economic downturn pausing cloud migrations or AI sucking the oxygen out of the room.

global economic downturn? what?

it’s absolutely the second one, this is a commonality across many orgs i’ve talked to who cannot get their CPU request met bc of GPU spend

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

#804

Post by breadwinner »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #695
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just Ellison alone brings unwelcome feeling of having Oracle craziness forced down our collective throats, but I share your concern about the unholy alliance generated in front of us.

My immediate reaction to the announcement was one of these is not like the others. OpenAI, a couple of big investment funds, Microsoft, Nvidia, and...............Oracle?

Oracle provides two things: A datacenter for Nvidia chips, and health data. Oracle Cerner had a 21.7% market share for inpatient hospital Electronic Health Records (EHR). Larry Ellison specifically mentioned healthcare when announcing it in the Whitehouse.

The announcement was funny because they weren't quite sure what they are going to do in the health space. Sam Altman was asked, and he immediately deferred to Ellison and Masayoshi. Ellison was vague... it seems they know they want to do something with Ellison's massive stash of health data... but they don't quite know what they are building yet.

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

#805

Post by i_love_retros »

whimsicalism wrote: post #800
rchaud wrote: post #796

The US appears to be fully in the grips of centralized economic autarky. A tiny coterie of industrialists who have the President's ear decide how to allocate a gigantic amount of capital for their pet projects while the state raises tariffs and implements bans to protect them from competition. Didn't go well for South America in the 60s and 70s but perhaps, as economists are prone to saying, "this time will be differ…

this is private capital. yes, we are in an era of big projects and big capital deployment. is that synonymous with centralized autarky? i don’t agree

What does it have to do with Trump then? Why was he involved?

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

#806

Post by lenerdenator »

whimsicalism wrote: post #800
rchaud wrote: post #796

The US appears to be fully in the grips of centralized economic autarky. A tiny coterie of industrialists who have the President's ear decide how to allocate a gigantic amount of capital for their pet projects while the state raises tariffs and implements bans to protect them from competition. Didn't go well for South America in the 60s and 70s but perhaps, as economists are prone to saying, "this time will be differ…

this is private capital. yes, we are in an era of big projects and big capital deployment. is that synonymous with centralized autarky? i don’t agree

This is an amount that would be a meaningful change to most US states' gross annual economic output that we're talking about, and a few people control it. Sounds pretty centralized to me.

The fact that a handful of individuals have half a trillion dollars to throw at something that may or may not work while working people can pay the price of a decent used car each year, every year to their health insurance company only to have claims denied is insane.

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

#807

Post by umeshunni »

i_love_retros wrote: post #805
whimsicalism wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is private capital. yes, we are in an era of big projects and big capital deployment. is that synonymous with centralized autarky? i don’t agree

What does it have to do with Trump then? Why was he involved?

He love the publicity and most people won't realize that he doesn't have anything to do with this.

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

#808

Post by viccis »

Davidzheng wrote: post #373
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #300

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…

Let me avoid the use of the word AGI here because the term is a little too loaded for me these days. 1) reasoning capabilities in latest models are rapidly approaching superhuman levels and continue to scale with compute. 2) intelligence at a certain level is easier to achieve algorithmically when the hardware improves. There's also a larger path to intelligence and often simpler mechanisms 3) most current generation…

>reasoning capabilities in latest models are rapidly approaching superhuman levels and continue to scale with compute

I still have a pretty hard time getting it to tell me how many sisters Alice has. I think this might be a bit optimistic.

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

#809

Post by i_love_retros »

deknos wrote: post #589

This is so much money with which we could actually solve problems in the world. maybe even stop wars which break out because of scarcity issues. maybe i am getting to old or to friendly to humans, but it's staggering to me how the priorities are for such things.

The wars are how American tax payer money gets given to all these companies. Why would they try to end them?
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