Compute Time
“Compute Time” – a cartoon that illustrates how access to computer processing is becoming one of the most important currencies in research.
NVIDIA recently launched Blackwell which with 20 Petaflops is 10x faster than its workhorse chip the H100 and places processing power traditionally only available to SuperComputers in the hands of consumers through applications like ChatGPT.
Outside of these marketing headlines, there is a parallel battle going on to get access to these compute capabilities in the long-tail of academia and research.
For example, universities that were instrumental in sustaining decades of R&D into AI when it was deeply unpopular are now edged out from access.
This is undermining academia’s greatest strength, which lies in its ability to pursue long-term research projects and fundamental studies that push the boundaries of knowledge.
Meanwhile, even within the tech companies leading the new wave of AI, there is competition for processing power.
For example, OpenAI’s team that was responsible for analyzing the existential dangers of AI was promised 20% of the company’s processing power, but the team have now all resigned or been re-assigned.
As Jan Leike, the former DeepMind researcher who was this team’s colead, remarked, “we were struggling for compute and it was getting harder and harder to get this crucial research done.”
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