Weekly AI Wrap: OpenAI’s Search For More Compute, Geoffrey Hinton Wins Physics Nobel Prize
In the edition of Beyond Tomorrow, we explore OpenAI closing its latest funding round last week and the Godfather of AI, Geoffery H. Hinton, winning the Nobel Physics Prize for 2024.
Welcome back to Beyond Tomorrow.
OpenAI closes its latest funding round last week, raising $6.6 billion at a valuation of an eyewatering $157 billion. Despite that, the company continues to hemorrhage top executives. Are there difficult times ahead for the company? Tough to say, given that it continues to stir controversy by suggesting that Microsoft isn’t being able to provide enough compute, according to a report from The Information.
In other news, Geoffery H. Hinton, the British-Canadian computer scientist widely touted as the ‘Godfather of AI,’ won the Nobel Prize for Physics alongside Professor John Hopfield. The duo were conferred with the award for “foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” It’s well-known that Hinton has been active in warning about the danger of AI and its unprecedented growth.
OpenAI Doesn’t Want To Wait For Microsoft
OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft may not be as buddy-buddy anymore. After the AI company raised $6.5 billion last week and began its shift into a for-profit company, it now plans to leverage data centers and AI chips on its own, rather than solely depending on Microsoft, according to a report from The Information.
It’s a pivot that would mark a definite shift in the relationship between the two companies, especially since Microsoft has more or less bankrolled most of OpenAI’s product launches. But the shift makes sense.
After the fundraise, the company is negotiating several of its financial details with the tech giant. What’s more, once the shift to becoming a for-profit finally happens, Microsoft will end up with a sizeable chunk of OpenAI shares, at least 25%, the report from The Information suggests.
But that isn’t likely to be as concerning to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, as much as staying ahead of the competition will be. Elon Musk’s xAI has been making significant strides, even going as far as announcing what is allegedly the world’s largest cluster of Nvidia AI chips.
In the meantime however, as the tech company seeks to renegotiate both its relationship and financials with Microsoft, it has turned to other cloud service providers for a lifeline. Most notable amongst them being Oracle. OpenAI is planning to lease the cloud computing company’s entire data center in Texas.
Geoffery H. Hinton Wins Physics Nobel Prize
Popularly referred to as the Godfather of AI, Geoffery H. Hinton won the Nobel Physics Prize for 2024. He was awarded the prize for his “foundational discoveries and inventions enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
Hinton began working in the U.K before moving to the U.S. until he finally settled on working at the University of Toronto. Prior to winning the Physics Nobel Prize, he won the Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize for Computing in 2018.
Since he joined University of Toronto, Hinton split his time between working at the education institution and Google’s deep learning division, Google Brain. However, he ended up resigning very publicly in 2023 citing concerns about being allowed to speak freely about the misuse of AI.
In fact, throughout his career, Hinton has been very public about reigning in AI. He has voiced concerns that there is a high risk that when AI surpasses human intelligence it would be able to manipulate people using the vast sources of data available on the Internet.
