Google Plans to Invest over $100 Billion in AGI Development to Compete with Microsoft’s ‘Stargate’ Project
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, announced at a TED conference in Canada that Google plans to spend over $100 billion on the long-term development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This comes as a response to Microsoft’s recent announcement of the ‘Stargate’ project, signaling increased competition between the two tech giants in the field of AI.
We’re not talking about our exact numbers, but I think we’re investing more than that over time.
Demis Hassabis
Microsoft’s ‘Stargate’ Project
According to reports from The Intercept, Microsoft and OpenAI are considering the construction of a $100 billion supercomputer for training AI systems. This project, nicknamed ‘Stargate’, would be implemented in five phases across the United States, culminating in the Stargate system. To put these costs into perspective, the current most powerful supercomputer, the ‘Frontier’ system located in the United States, cost about $600 million to build.
Definition and Significance of AGI
AGI refers to an AI system theoretically capable of performing any task that an average adult could do, given appropriate resources. Current AI systems are limited by their training methods and data, and fall short of achieving ‘human-level’ intelligence by many criteria. The challenge for Google and Microsoft, therefore, is to become the first organization to develop true AGI.
Controversy Surrounding AGI and Cryptocurrency
Hassabis expressed concerns about the current hype around AI/AGI and the scams it has attracted, drawing a negative comparison to the cryptocurrency market. Despite the hype, both the AI and cryptocurrency sectors have experienced significant financial growth. For example, Bitcoin’s price has more than doubled from $30,000 to over $60,000 since April 2023, while Microsoft’s stock, the current leader in the AI industry, has increased from $286 to around $416 over the same period.
