AI in brief According to recent research, using a text-image model to create an AI-generated image can require almost the same amount of energy as that required to charge a smartphone.
In a paper published on arXiv last week, a team of researchers from Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University calculated how much energy AI systems use when asked to perform different tasks.
After asking AIs to make 1,000 inferences for each task, the researchers found that text-based AI tasks are more energy efficient than tasks involving images.
Text generation consumed 0.042 kWh and generation 1.35 kWh. Experts say that charging a smartphone requires 0.012 kWh, making image generation a very energy-intensive application.
“The least efficient image generation model consumes as much power as 950 smartphone charges (11.49 kWh), or nearly one charge per image generation,” the authors write, noting the “large variation between image generation models, depending on image size. they generate.”
The authors also measured the carbon dioxide created by different AI workloads. As the chart below shows, image creation tops this ranking.
You can read the full article here (PDF).
Microsoft invests £2.5 billion in UK data centers
Microsoft will spend £2.5 billion to expand its UK data centers and plans to equip them with more than 20,000 GPUs by 2026.
The deal would be the biggest investment the tech giant has made in Blighty since launching operations on that side of the pond 40 years ago. Microsoft currently has data centers in London and Cardiff and may support additional locations in the north of England in the future.
Microsoft has also committed to training one million people to work in AI with a multi-million pound investment. It will support new programs aimed at teaching workers the skills needed to help them understand applications and develop technology, and plans to establish the first professional certificate in generative AI.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the investment last week. “Microsoft (is) one of the founding fathers of modern technology and today’s announcement marks a turning point for the future of AI infrastructure and development in the UK,” he said. he declared. declared in a report.
“Microsoft is committed as a company to ensuring that the UK, as a country, has world-leading AI infrastructure, easy access to the skills people need and broad safety and security protections,” added Brad Smith, vice president and president of the software giant.
Sports Illustrated criticized for applying AI-generated signatures to AI-generated copy
American sports magazine, Sports Illustratedwas criticized last week for publishing AI-generated articles under fake bylines that included AI-generated photos and made-up biographies for journalists that don’t exist.
People from scientific and technological publishing, FuturismI thought something looked fishy and trace the image of the proposed journalist writing for Sports Illustrated return to a website selling AI-generated portraits.
When they contacted the Arena Group, the media industry behind Sports Illustrated, AI-generated articles and bylines were suddenly deleted. A statement on X published by the sports magazine claimed that all stories were written and edited by humans hired by external content marketing company AdVon Commerce.
But it decided to create fake AI-generated journalism profiles “to protect the privacy of the authors.”
However, confusingly, he also claimed that the content was created and curated using “counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software.” Sports Illustrated announced that it has ended its partnership with AdVon and is investigating the issue.
Human writers working at Sports Illustrated would have been furious. At a staff meeting, senior executives including magazine editor Steve Cannella and his boss, Arena Group CEO Ross Levinsohn, called it a “one-off mistake at an AI company “. according to has The Washington Post.
It is not very surprising that Sports Illustrated has turned to delivering AI-generated content. Another of his titles, Men’s healthAlso published a sloppy, machine-written article that contained factual errors.
Dell to build massive AI computing cluster for startup Unicorn
Dell has signed a massive $150 million cloud deal to back Imbue, an AI startup focused on creating intelligent agents that can reason.
The deal was announced last week and shows that it’s not just the biggest cloud providers that can attract major AI customers. Anyone with enough GPUs that can be used efficiently to support large workloads can do so. In September, Imbue raised $200 million in its Series B round, for a valuation over $1 billion.
The newcomer will have access to a high-performance computing cluster consisting of Dell PowerEdge XE9680 servers, which contain two fourth-generation Intel The exact number of servers in the cluster has not been disclosed.
The newcomer’s CTO, Josh Albrecht, revealed that Imbue would use computers to create new fundamental models. “Creating a new generation of core models requires the best IT infrastructure, and Dell Technologies helped us deploy a custom cluster much faster than other vendors could have done,” he said. declared. declared. The cluster will be managed by a third party – Voltage parkan AI infrastructure provider.
All cloud providers, especially the big ones like AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft, are struggling to meet the demand for AI computing. Dell may be able to support Imbue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can do the same for other customers. During its earnings call last week, the hardware giant admitted Customers ordering PowerEdge XE9680 servers will have to wait 39 weeks for their equipment to arrive. ®
