Astonishing Speed.

Addressable market.

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1. OpenAI has pitched the Biden administration on the need for massive data centers that could each use as much power as entire cities, framing the unprecedented expansion as necessary to develop more advanced artificial intelligence models and compete with China. Following a recent meeting at the White House, which was attended by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and other tech leaders, the startup shared a document with government officials outlining the economic and national security benefits of building 5 gigawatt data centers in various US states, based on an analysis the company engaged with outside experts on. To put that in context, 5 GW is roughly the equivalent of five nuclear reactors, or enough to power almost 3 million homes. Altman has spent much of this year trying to form a global coalition of investors to fund the costly physical infrastructure required to support rapid AI development, while also working to secure the US government’s blessing for the project. But the details on the energy capacity of the data centers Altman and OpenAI are calling for have not previously been reported. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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2. Daniela Rus and Nico Enriquez:

Before we can use the most advanced microchips and run our state-of-the-art AI models, we need interstate-type corridors to transmit sufficient, reliable power to our data centers. More than 150 AI experts that we have interviewed in the last year affirmed that our outdated electric grid capacity is holding us back. If America’s computer servers hit their limits, suddenly the GPS in your car will take a while to load. The robotics assisting your gall bladder surgery will pause to compute. Even critical cybersecurity and infrastructure systems could be affected.

It takes the United States 10 to 20 years to get approval for and build new transmission lines. Compare that to China’s autocratic centralized efficiency: Beijing has largely consolidated its regional utilities into one state-run organization, and it can build new power lines in under five years. China now has a power system with a speed and scale that may be challenging for the United States to match; from 2014 to 2021 China built 80 times the interregional grid capacity that we did. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

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3. Fei Fei Li:

AI is progressing at astonishing speed. Anywhere there’s a chip, including a light bulb or a car or your refrigerator — or even a big robot one day — anywhere there’s a chip, there’s computing. Anywhere there’s computing, it’ll be changed by AI. (Sources: us.macmillan.com, princeton.edu/news)

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