Project Stargate gets a $500 billion budget to develop AI infrastructure

OpenAI is determined to reach AGI with their LLM

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OpenAI Project Stargate gets $500 billion budget

Last year in March, we reported about Project Stargate which was supposed to be a partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI to create an AI supercomputer. Almost a year later, OpenAI Project Stargate announced The Stargate Project, which will get a mind-numbing $500 billion investment over the next 4 years.

The old Stargate development was only founded by Microsoft. The partnership now involves SoftBank and OpenAI as lead partners, Oracle, and MGX as additional partners and investors. SoftBank will assume financial responsibility and OpenAI will have operational responsibility.

However, there are more players in this project that is meant to bring technology development exclusively to the U.S.

Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements. Source: OpenAI press release

That doesn’t mean that Microsoft is out of the way, on the contrary. OpenAI mentioned that they will supply the first $100 billion, the budget the software giant mentioned a year ago. The AI developer will still use Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure to train their LLMs.

Microsoft gives OpenAI a little bit more freedom

In fact, Microsoft issued a separate document to clarify their collaboration with OpenAI. The deal is mostly the same and Microsoft outlines the main points of the partnership:

  • Microsoft has rights to OpenAI IP (inclusive of model and infrastructure) for use within our products like Copilot. This means our customers have access to the best model for their needs.
  • The OpenAI API is exclusive to Azure, runs on Azure and is also available through the Azure OpenAI Service. This agreement means customers benefit from having access to leading models on Microsoft platforms and direct from OpenAI.
  • Microsoft and OpenAI have revenue sharing agreements that flow both ways, ensuring that both companies benefit from increased use of new and existing models.
  • Microsoft remains a major investor in OpenAI, providing funding and capacity to support their advancements and, in turn, benefiting from their growth in valuation.

However, there is a small change to this deal which allows OpenAI to use other infrastructures to train and develop their products, but only if Azure is not on par with their requirements:

In addition to this, OpenAI recently made a new, large Azure commitment that will continue to support all OpenAI products as well as training. This new agreement also includes changes to the exclusivity on new capacity, moving to a model where Microsoft has a right of first refusal (ROFR). To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models. Source: Microsoft Blog

In the closing of their press release, OpenAI says that the ultimate goal of The Stargate Project is to reach AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) with their LLM for the benefit of all of humanity:

We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity.

AGI is definitely the next step in artificial intelligence development, and OpenAI already has a roadmap to reach it. Whether or not it will elevate humanity is an ongoing debate. In the meantime, The Stargate Project will lead to a lot of jobs for Americans.

Let us know in the comments below what you think about Project Stargate and its development.

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