- Planned data center would power OpenAI’s artificial intelligence
- The data center, referred to as ‘Stargate’ is much bigger and costlier than anything in the world today
- Stargate would cost $100 billion, according to reports – much more than any other data center to date
Microsoft and OpenAI are rumored to be planning to build a huge supercomputer to power OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) that could cost $100 billion to build, according to a report.
The Information cited three unnamed people involved in the proposed build, named ‘Stargate’ including speaking to top executives about it.
‘Stargate’, which would be built in the US, would be financed by Microsoft, and could be launched in 2028. The supercomputer would be the final part of a five-phase plan the companies are working on – they are currently on the third phase of it.
If the rumors are true, then Stargate would cost 100 times more than some of the biggest data centers in the world today. The huge investment and the size of the project shows how much computing capacity may be needed for AI in the future.
AI has developed rapidly in recent years and especially since ChatGPT was launched by OpenAI back in November 2022, sparking a race between tech companies to provide ever-more advanced AI solutions. But to work effectively, AI requires huge amounts of computing power, much more than traditional data centers have – hence the rumored plans. Other companies are also planning to up their data center capacity too.
In addition, the AI chips required for the sort of scale needed for Stargate are huge and the chips are not cheap – Nvidia recently said its latest will sell for between $30-40,000.
Microsoft and OpenAI have thus far not responded to the report to confirm or deny it.
