Get to know Stargate, an AI supercomputer worth IDR 1,593 trillion created by Microsoft and OpenAI
- Microsoft and OpenAI are working on a new AI supercomputer data center headquartered in the US that will cost more than US$ 100 billion (Rp. 1,593 trillion) as reported by Tom's Guide, April 3 2024, citing The Information.
Called Stargate, this futuristic-sounding project gets a sci-fi-inspired name. The project is planned to support OpenAI's next generation AI systems, such as ChatGPT, and will be launched as soon as 2028.
Stargate is expected to be one of the largest and most advanced data centers in the world, covering several hundred acres of land and using up to 5 gigawatts of power, according to three people involved in the proposal who spoke with the outlet, as The Information reported.
Of the series of installations the company plans to build over the next six years, Stargate has the largest scope, and is considered critical for OpenAI to train and operate AI models more advanced than ChatGPT-4. Considering their energy needs, these companies have discussed the use of alternative energy sources such as nuclear energy.
The name Stargate comes from the 1994 science fiction film of the same name, in which archaeologists discover an interstellar teleportation device that takes them to an alien world that had a hand in human civilization. The film's trailer famously describes it as “the key to the past, the door to the future, the path to discovery,” which seems a clear inspiration for OpenAI and Microsoft's AI supercomputing efforts.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft employees have reportedly divided plans to build multiple supercomputers across America into five phases, with Stargate being the fifth and final phase.
The Stargate supercomputer project is expected to take between five and six years to complete, according to The Information. Microsoft also plans to launch a phase 4 supercomputer with a smaller scope for OpenAI around 2026.
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To date, Microsoft has poured more than US$ 13 billion (Rp. 207 trillion) into OpenAI so that the startup can use Microsoft data centers to support ChatGPT. But Stargate would be an unprecedented (and expensive) expansion of the partnership.
The project could cost up to $100 billion, according to a source at The Information who saw Microsoft's initial cost estimate and spoke with Altman about the proposal. This staggering figure is 100 times more expensive than the largest data centers operating today, and would be more than three times what Microsoft spent last year on servers, buildings and other equipment.
It's important to note that this project has not yet been greenlit, and it's unclear where it will be headquartered in the US if it goes ahead. Of course, everything depends on whether OpenAI can deliver the next generation of large language models, which is rumored to be GPT-5.
Last year, the company missed its planned start-up time to present a new AI project called Arrakis to Microsoft, citing the limitations of current supercomputers as an obstacle hindering development.
While Stargate may still be years away, many AI-powered tools already exist. Microsoft has made OpenAI's largest language model available for free on its Copilot platform. OpenAI also recently made ChatGPT available to anyone who doesn't have an account.