China’s AI firms are cleverly innovating around chip bans
Tweaks to software blunt the shortage of powerful hardware
TODAY’S TOP artificial-intelligence (AI) models rely on large numbers of cutting-edge processors known as graphics processing units (GPUs). Most Western companies have no trouble acquiring them. Llama 3, the newest model from Meta, a social-media giant, was trained on 16,000 H100 GPUs from Nvidia, an American chipmaker. Meta plans to stockpile 600,000 more before year’s end. XAI, a startup backed by Elon Musk, has built a data centre in Memphis powered by 100,000 H100s. And though OpenAI, the other big model-maker, is tight-lipped about its GPU stash, it had its latest processors hand-delivered by Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s boss, in April.
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This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Miniature model-building”
Science & technology September 21st 2024
From the September 21st 2024 edition
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has achieved something extraordinary
If SpaceX can land and reuse the most powerful rocket ever made what can’t it do?
Could life exist on one of Jupiter’s moons?
A spacecraft heading to Europa is designed to find out
Noise-dampening tech could make ships less disruptive to marine life
Solutions include bendy propellers and “acoustic black holes”
Meet Japan’s hitchhiking fish
Medaka catch rides on obliging birds, confirming one of Darwin’s hunches
AI wins big at the Nobels
Awards went to the discoverers of micro-RNA, pioneers of artificial-intelligence models and those using them for protein-structure prediction
Google’s DeepMind researchers among recipients of Nobel prize for chemistry
The award honours protein design and the use of AI for protein-structure prediction
