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To Build a Better AI Supercomputer, Let There Be Light
OpenAI and other AI leaders think new leaps in machine intelligence will require new forms of computer hardware. One proposal involves connecting GPUs with light.
At an event hosted by the venture capital firm Sequoia last month, the CEO of a startup called Lightmatter pitched a technology that might well enable this hyperscale computing rethink by letting chips talk directly to one another using light. One audience member at the Sequoia event was Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who has at times appeared obsessed with the question of how to build bigger, faster data centers to further advance AI. The large data centers that are needed to train giant AI algorithms typically consist of racks filled with tens of thousands of computers running specialized silicon chips and a spaghetti of mostly electrical connections between them.
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