NAIROBI (Coinchapter.com) – In a recent statement at a TED conference in Canada, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, made a compelling announcement that Google plans to invest over $100 billion in the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This declaration comes in response to Microsoft’s “Stargate” initiative, signaling a major commitment from Google to advance AGI technology.
Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010, which Google acquired in 2014. He announced at a TED conference in Canada that when questioned about the “Stargate” project, he replied, “We don’t discuss specific numbers, but our investment will exceed that over time.” Above all, this underscores Google’s strong commitment to leading in the competitive AI field.
Microsoft and OpenAI’s Ambitious “Stargate” Project
Reportedly codenamed ‘Stargate,’ this project is a collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI. They aim to build a $100 billion supercomputer system for training advanced AI models. An anonymous source close to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the Stargate project is in the planning stages. The goal is to create a distributed network of computers across the United States.
Moreover, to put the proposed costs into perspective, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the U.S.-based “Frontier” system, cost approximately $600 million to build. The Stargate project envisions a much more ambitious, multi-phase approach that will ultimately culminate in the creation of a ‘penultimate’ Stargate system.
Google’s Plans to Invest and Its Competitive Edge
Notably, in his remarks, Hassabis highlighted one of Google’s key advantages over its rivals, including Microsoft. He noted that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has better computing power than its competitors, which is a crucial factor in the race for AGI.
“That’s one of the reasons we teamed up with Google back in 2014, is we knew that in order to get to AGI we would need a lot of compute,” Hassabis said. This emphasizes the importance of access to vast computing resources in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence.
Notably, on April 16th, 2024, Alphabet’s stock price closed at $156.33 per share. In the trading session following the AGI investment announcement, the stock price has risen slightly, up 0.21% to $156.00 as of the market close. While the increase is modest in the short-term, the overall trend shows investor optimism, with the stock price up over 8% in the past month.
In conclusion, Google commits over $100 billion to AGI technology. Above all, this underscores its ambition to lead in the evolving AI landscape. As AI competition intensifies, expect larger investments and bold initiatives from tech giants.
