There's a $100 billion secret hiding in the labs of Microsoft and OpenAI: a secret that could change the face of computing and artificial intelligence forever. According to anonymous sources cited by The Information, the two companies would be collaborating on the construction of a supercomputer of gigantic proportions, with the aim of training the most powerful and sophisticated AI ever seen. Its code name is Stargate and it is expected to come into operation by 2028. But with such an astronomical investment, the real challenge will be finding a business model that makes it sustainable.
Stargate, a portal to the future of AI
Indeed, Stargate is an evocative name for a visionary project. A 100 billion dollar supercomputer, a figure that exceeds the GDP of many countries, dedicated exclusively to the training of new generation artificial intelligence. Unprecedented computing power, at the service of the ambition to redefine the boundaries of the possible in the age of AI.
To give you the measure of the economic effort, Microsoft's net profit in the first quarter of 2024 is approximately 22 billion. Sure, the capitalization is 2000 billion, but it has little to do with investment.
The Stargate project arrives (and not by chance) at a time of unprecedented turmoil for the sector. GPT-4, OpenAI's latest language model, has amazed the world with its language understanding and generation capabilities. Today, although "threatened" by competitors (Claude 3 above all), the AI of Sam Altman's crew seems to be only on the verge of making a higher leap (with GPT-5, Sora for videos, Voice Engine for audio).
Stargate promises to push the frontier even further. With processing power on the order of exaflops (billions of operations per second), this supercomputer could train AI models of previously unimaginable size and complexity. Models capable of learning from endless datasets, of capturing increasingly subtle nuances and contexts, of generating increasingly higher quality output.
A mind-boggling investment
I said it? More than once, of course. But I can't think about it. 100 billion dollars. If the sources are not mistaken, it is a colossal investment: one hundred times higher than what Microsoft made in OpenAI just 5 years ago. Ten times higher than what he did a few months ago.
And the return on investment is far from guaranteed, at least in the short term. So far, the dominant strategy of Chat GPT, Gemini, Claude and others has been to offer free or low-cost AI services, in the hope of attracting a critical mass of users and developers.
But it's hard to imagine this approach scaling to the level of an investment like Stargate. And competition between platforms risks further eroding margins, in a race to the bottom of fees.
The unknowns on Stargate's path
Aside from the issue of competition, there are at least two major obstacles that make Stargate's bet even more unlikely. There is that of the data used to train AI models: data which, as demonstrated by the recent legal battle between OpenAI and dataset providers such as Shutterstock, have a non-negligible cost in terms of acquisition, management and protection of privacy. A cost that risks growing exponentially as the size and complexity of the models, such as those that Stargate aims to develop, increase.
And do we want to talk about the regulatory unknowns weighing on the AI sector? From the European Union to the United States, via China, regulators around the world are developing legislative frameworks to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence. Sacrosanct rules to protect citizens' rights, promote transparency and corporate responsibility, and prevent distorted or discriminatory uses of AI. And which could prove particularly burdensome for mammoth projects like Stargate, which by their nature attract the attention and concern of public opinion and political decision-makers.
Dream big, with your feet on the ground
In summary, the road to Stargate is paved with technological, economic and regulatory challenges. But if Microsoft and OpenAI succeed in their undertaking, the repercussions could be immense.
Not just for the two companies, which would find themselves in an incredibly advantageous position in the AI race. But for all of humanity, which could benefit from superior artificial intelligence in every field: from science to medicine, from education to entertainment, from the fight against climate change to the discovery of space.
Stargate, with all its risks and promises, could be one of the most important "civilian" choices we will see in recent years. A portal that takes us directly into the heart of the 21st century.
