his week, the University of Bristol has powered up Isambard-AI, the UK’s fastest and most potent supercomputer, following a £225 million investment announced by the government last March. Built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Isambard-AI boasts over 5,000 NVIDIA superchips, enabling it to execute a staggering 200 quadrillion calculations per second. Officially named the AI Research Resource (AIRR), this supercomputer surpasses its predecessor by a factor of ten in computational power, aiming to support critical AI technology development.
South Korean telecommunications giant SK Telecom has secured approval from the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) for its proposal to standardize technology for AI data centers. This development marks a significant step forward in establishing international norms for AI-related technologies in data centers.
The recent unveiling of Llama 3, Meta Platforms Inc.’s latest AI model, has stirred significant enthusiasm among technology and AI influencers. This launch on the ‘X’ platform has sparked discussions about democratizing AI, with a notable surge in conversations during the third week of April, according to GlobalData’s Social Media Analytics Platform.
Meta is ambitiously positioning itself to become the world’s top AI company, co-aligned with an increase in AI spending. The tech giant’s latest earnings reveal a climbing revenue and expenses, inciting mixed responses from investors. The landscape of optimistic forecasts and increased capital expenditures seems less rosy weighed against lower than expected Q2 revenue forecasts and significant investments into AI infrastructure. CEO Mark Zuckerberg points to an aggressive AI research expansion being instrumental in the fierce race against competitors OpenAI and Microsoft.
Softbank, the Japanese telecommunications giant, is gearing up to bolster its supercomputing capabilities in a bid to support its ambitious generative AI (GenAI) strategy. As reported by Nikkei, Softbank plans to allocate JPY150 billion ($960 million) over the next two years towards upgrading its computing infrastructure, a significant leap from the JPY20 billion invested last year.
Microsoft is collaborating with UAE’s AI firm G42 in a landmark move aimed at accelerating AI innovation across such sectors as finance, healthcare, and education, with a considerable investment. This move, merged with strategic geopolitical consideration, has sent ripples across the global telecommunications industry, indicating a shift in its dynamics.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has raised alarms regarding the possibility of a collusion among a handful of American tech giants, aiming to manipulate the AI market in their favor. The focus of their worry centers on the control exerted by these companies over the development and commercialization of foundation models (FMs), with Open AI’s GPT being a prominent example.
President Yoon Suk Yeol recently detailed South Korea’s aggressive moves to establish its supremacy in the global semiconductor sector, including a staggering $6.94 billion commitment to AI by 2027. Amid fierce competition, South Korea’s largest telecom firm, SK Telecom, is paralleling governmental efforts with its own investment in AI firms.
In a strategic move to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across its vast network, Orange has teamed up with Google Cloud to deploy AI solutions closer to its operations and customers. The collaboration, announced at Google’s Cloud Next ’24 event in Las Vegas, aims to leverage Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), a fully managed hardware and software solution.
The transformative growth of AI is undeniably impressive but raises several concerns. Despite their potential for innovation, GenAI advancements could blur the line between fact and fiction, adding to the challenge of distinguishing authentic information. NTT calls for flexible but robust regulations to manage potential threats to trust and democracy, citing the need for education, copyright updates, and content labelling.
