Elon Musk's Artificial Intelligence Project Just Got a Free SupercomputerAn Elon Musk-backed artificial intelligence research group just got a brand new toy from chip maker Nvidia.
This story originally appeared onFortune Magazine
OpenAI non-profit gets a powerful new toy to research AI.
An Elon Musk-backed artificial intelligence research group just got a brand new toy from chip maker Nvidia.
Nvidiasaidon Monday that it had donated one of its new supercomputers to the OpenAI non-profit artificial intelligence research project. OpenAIdebutedin December with financial backing from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk along with money from other high-profile technology luminaries like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman andPayPalco-founder Peter Thiel.
OpenAI's goal is partly to create a non-profit outside the corporate sector that could research artificial intelligence technologies without a financial incentive. The concern is that many companies like Google and Facebook that are researching artificial intelligence technologies would horde talent and only work on projects beneficial to their financial interests.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang personally delivered the supercomputer, the newly introduced DGX-1, last week to OpenAI's San Francisco office. A photo accompanying the press announcement shows both Huang and Musk looking at the supercomputer, which Huang signed.
"To Elon and the OpenAI Team!" wrote Huang on the supercomputer's body. "To the future of computing and humanity. I present you the world's first DGX-1!"
Would like to thank@nvidiaand Jensen for donating the first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to@OpenAIin support of democratizing AI technology
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)August 9, 2016
OpenAI and Nvidia did not explain what exactly the supercomputer would be used for. Nvidia announced plans for the machine, described as equivalent in power to "250 servers in a box" and costing $129,000, in April. At the time, the company said that universities like MIT, University of California at Berkeley and Stanford would get access to the supercomputers.
Nvidia已经销售DGX-1作为超级计算机built to specifically handle a trendy artificial intelligence technique called deep learning, which has been adopted by in recent years by companies likeGoogleandFacebook. For example, they have used deep learning totrain computersto recognize objects in photographs.
Nvidia has been benefiting from acurrent boomin artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies with its lineup of computer chips known as GPUs that can power both technologies. In August, Nvidiareportedthat it had $1.43 billion in second quarter revenue, a 24% year-over-year increase.
"Strong demand for our new Pascal-generation GPUs and surging interest in deep learning drove record results," Huang said in a statement at the time.
In June, OpenAI said that one of itsgoalsinvolves building an "off-the-shelf" robot and releasing its blueprints for other companies and organizations to manufacture.
Last week, OpenAI research scientist Ian Goodfellow explained on the question and answer website Quora that both Musk and OpenAI backer and Y Combinator president Sam Altman were "quite involved" with the non-profit and that "both are in the office each week."
In June, OpenAIreleasedsome results of its artificial intelligence research into what's known as unsupervised learning, which generally refers to the ability of computers to learn from so-calledunlabeled datathat have not been refined by humans.
