Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news in the morning of August 15, Beijing time, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are scrambling to buy thousands of high-performance Nvidia chips to participate in the global artificial intelligence arms race, making this Silicon Valley's most popular commodity more in short supply.

Both Gulf states have made public their goal of becoming artificial intelligence leaders as a means of stimulating economic development. But there are also concerns that autocratic leaders in both countries may abuse the technology.

Saudi Arabia has purchased at least 3000 Nvidia H100 chips through King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, according to people familiar with the matter. According to Huang Renxun, CEO of Nvidia, the chip, which costs $40,000 each, is "the world's first computer chip designed specifically for generative artificial intelligence."

At the same time, the UAE has ensured that it has access to thousands of Nvidia chips and has developed its own open source big language model Falcon at the State-owned Institute of Science and Technology Innovation in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi.

"the UAE has decided that they want to own and control their own computing power and computing talent, and have their own platform." "the key is that they have enough capital, they have energy, and they can attract world-class talent," said people familiar with the situation in Abu Dhabi. "

At a time when the world's top technology companies are scrambling to buy the scarce artificial intelligence chips, the two Gulf states have also bought large quantities of Nvidia chips through state-owned groups.

American companies such as OpenAI and Google have state-of-the-art big language models, and they are also major buyers of Nvidia's H100 and A100 chips.

The company shipped about 550000 H100 chips worldwide in 2023, according to people close to Nvidia and its contract partner TSMC. Nvidia declined to comment.

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will receive 3000 such chips by the end of 2023, with a total value of about $120 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

By contrast, estimates show that OpenAI trained advanced GPT-3 models in just over a month using 1024 A100 chips. The A100 is the previous generation of Nvidia chips and its performance is not as good as that of the H100.

The Saudi university, which also has at least 200 A100 chips, is developing a supercomputer called Shaheen III, which will be operational this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The machine will use 700 Nvidia Grace Hoppers super chips, a chip designed for top artificial intelligence applications.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will also use these chips to develop its own large language models, according to people familiar with the matter. Similar to OpenAI's GPT-4, this software can generate text, images, and code comparable to human beings.

The United Arab Emirates became the first country to set up an artificial intelligence ministry as early as 2017 and issued "generative artificial intelligence guidance" to implement the government's plan to "strengthen its position as a global pioneer in science, technology and artificial intelligence". And "restrict the application of artificial intelligence through a regulatory framework".

The UAE Falcon model is currently available online for free. It uses 384 A100 chips and takes 2 months to complete.

"considering the resources they use, this model amazes me," said a leading expert on artificial intelligence and large language models. It has been one of the best models in the open source domain for some time. "

Venture capitalists such as Marc Andreessen are also impressed. A sovereign wealth investor in the United Arab Emirates said Mr Anderson had contacted the team. A spokesman for Mr. Anderson declined to comment.

The UAE government has purchased a new batch of Nvidia chips, hoping to prepare for more applications and cloud services related to large language models, according to people familiar with UAE policy.

Western artificial intelligence leaders and human rights experts worry that software developed in the two countries may lack the moral safeguards and security features of large technology companies.

Iverna McGowan, director of the European office of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, said: "combined with the discriminatory impact of artificial intelligence and the powerful power of illegal surveillance, we are quite concerned about this."

The windfall from petrodollars boosted the economies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after energy prices soared last year. Both countries have the largest and most active sovereign investment funds in the world.

According to CEO, two European artificial intelligence companies that declined to be identified, affiliated funds in the Gulf countries have also recently contacted Western artificial intelligence start-ups in the hope of using computing resources in exchange for expertise in code and large language models.

"in order to make direct use of our talents, they have offered very high prices and data resources." One of the executives said.

During a visit to Abu Dhabi in June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the country for its recognition of the importance of artificial intelligence and its foresight. Speaking at a question-and-answer session in Abu Dhabi's financial district, he said the Gulf region could play a "central role in the global dialogue" around the emerging technology and its regulation.

"before artificial intelligence attracted so much attention, Abu Dhabi began to talk about this technology." "right now, everyone is in a wave of artificial intelligence, and we are very excited about it," he said. but when people think that artificial intelligence cannot be achieved, some people are talking about this technology, and I am very grateful to them. "

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