Published in AI

Big Tech has convinced investors that AI is the new goldrush

by on01 June 2023


Investors rushing to put cash into AI-based companies

In what could be a huge bubble, investors are rushing to put their savings into companies centered around AI technology. 

Time Magazine has reported that such chips have suddenly taken center stage in what some experts consider an AI revolution that could reshape the technology sector — and possibly the world along with it.

Shares of Nvidia, the leading designer of AI chips, rocketed up almost 25 per cent after the company forecast a huge jump in revenue that analysts said indicated soaring sales of its products. The company was briefly worth more than $1 trillion on Tuesday.

All this is a bit over the top as no one has actually agreed upon the definition of AI chips and current technology is a long way from being much more than a glorified data search interface. It is not helped by the fact that words like "training" are being used to give the impression someone is educating this code.  Terms like the "Algorithm " are also replacing less sexy words like software to give the impression that software written using AI is more intelligent than the software typed on a Commodore Pet in the 1980s.

That is not to say the technology involved in current AI is not impressive as Nvidia's H100 GPU packs in 80 billion transistors and will set you back $30,000, but this is not AI which implies a degree of independence. 

The current "AI" boom follows the rise of cloud-computing services such as those run by Amazon and Microsoft which provide the data tech to be searched by the freshly trained systems.  This means that smaller companies and groups that couldn’t afford to build their own AI systems from scratch have to use cloud-based tools to help with tasks that can range from drug discovery to customer management.

So with a "gold rush" predicted, Analysts say Nvidia will inevitably face tougher competition with AMD bolstering its own lineup of AI chips and Intel making moves in that direction.  But the technology has to move from sorta-AI to real-AI or the whole lot will implode taking all those investors with it.

 

Last modified on 01 June 2023
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