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Why Nvidia was left out of a new tech consortium
ALSO: Scavenging for a rare plant with AI
Zain Kahn
May 31, 2024
Read time: under 4 minutes
Welcome back, Superhuman
In a rare move, the world’s biggest tech companies are coming together to create a shared ecosystem for AI chips. But one major name is conspicuously absent. Also: An AI-powered expedition to find one of the world’s rarest plants.
Today’s Insights
Why tech companies want to build a shared chip ecosystem
Prompt: Friday Funday - Weekend Trip
Using AI to find a near-extinct “living fossil”
5 new AI tools to boost your productivity
Everything else you should know today
AI-Generated Images: Food carts through history
NEXT IN AI
Tech companies agree to build a shared chip language
It’s not easy getting the tech giants to agree on something, but there might be one thing that just about all of them can get behind: A standardized way to connect the chips inside AI data centers. Intel, Meta, Microsoft, AMD, and several other major companies say they’re putting aside their differences to build a chip ecosystem that’s more flexible and inclusive.
Where’s Nvidia? There’s a reason why the third-largest company by market size might not have gotten an invitation to the party — or at the very least, decided not to attend. Its AI accelerators currently dominate, making up between 80% and 95% of the market. When a company purchases Nvidia GPUs — the powerful chips used for training AI models — they also have to use its proprietary system to run them.
Why are tech companies looking for an alternative? They want to be able to mix and match chip parts so that no single company can control the prices of each component. A shared architecture would also make it easier for companies to scale up their operations as they grow — instead of having to start over from scratch each time they upgrade their hardware.
So, what’s the plan? The participants have formed a group called the Ultra Accelerator Link that’s building a system for connecting more than 1,000 AI accelerators together into a single computing pod. The group claims this approach will make AI training faster and more energy efficient. The consortium plans to roll out its first components within the next few years.
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AI AT WORK
How to access and use Gemini 1.5 Flash
Go to the AI studio website and sign up
Select Gemini 1.5 Flash as your model from the drop-down menu in the right corner
Customize temperature, tokens, sequences, etc. from the Run Setting Panel on the right side
Add system instructions at the top of the screen (according to your prompt)
Now write in your prompt and hit the Run button
Availability depends on region. Some countries may not have access.
PROMPT OF THE DAY
Friday Funday – Weekend Trip
Prompt: You are my travel agent. Give me five ideas for a weekend trip from [YOUR CITY] that are within a two-hour drive. I will be traveling during [DATES/MONTH] with [TRAVEL COMPANIONS], and we enjoy things like [ACTIVITY], [ACTIVITY], and [TYPE OF EXPERIENCE]. Ask me five questions that would help you do a better job of helping me pick a place.
You can adapt the prompt to your specific needs.
Source: The Getaway Journals
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AI & THE ENVIRONMENT
The AI-powered search for an endangered plant
Source: University of Southampton
“Lonely” is putting it mildly. A plant that’s older than the dinosaurs is at risk of going extinct in the wild because there are no known female specimens to help it repopulate. The E. woodii is one of the oldest and rarest seed-bearing plants in the world — with the only known specimen spotted in a South African forest in 1895. Researchers managed to propagate the plant in captivity to generate male clones, but so far, natural repopulation has been impossible.
University of Southampton researcher Laura Cinti is holding out hope: She used a drone to take tens of thousands of aerial photos of the Ngoye Forest, where the 19th-century plant was discovered. Then, she trained an AI model to analyze the images and identify the plants shown in them. The LLM got so good that it was able to identify species that humans can’t detect. No females have turned up yet, but the drone has so far only scanned around 195 acres — or just 2% of its possible habitat.
Why it’s important: The E. woodii is part of a group of plants known as cycads that are around 300 million years old. They look a little like palm trees but are from a completely different, much older lineage. The “living fossils” can live for hundreds of years, and they have evergreen leaves and cones instead of flowers. Even though they’ve survived several mass extinctions, human intervention is driving them to the brink, and the university says they’re now considered “the most endangered organisms on our planet.”
For now, the “world’s loneliest plant” sits protected inside England’s Kew Gardens in what Cinti calls a classic tale of unrequited love. But her AI tool could eventually reveal an appropriate partner hidden somewhere in the dense forest. “I’m hopeful there is a female out there somewhere,” she said in a press release. “After all, there must have been at one time.”
PRODUCTIVITY
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AI & TECH NEWS
Everything else you need to know today
Source: Palantir
AI Arsenal: Software company Palantir secured a $480 million contract to supply the US Army with AI tools, including a platform that helps soldiers identify targets during battle.
Hot Off the Press: The Atlantic and Vox Media join a growing list of news organizations that have signed product and licensing deals with OpenAI.
Secret Summit: The CEOs of DeepMind, Anthropic, and Microsoft joined other powerful figures to discuss the rise of AI during the mysterious, closed-door Bilderberg Meeting on Thursday.
Cleared for Takeoff: The FAA has approved Amazon’s bid to expand its drone delivery service. The company wants to use drones to deliver 500 million packages per year by 2030.
😄 One Fun Thing: An AI-generated video shows Jensen Huang hyping up a crowd after learning that xAI wants to build the largest Nvidia supercomputer. It’s a riff on Lil Yachty’s “hardest walk out ever,” which has generated 6.8 million views on YouTube.
AI GENERATED IMAGES
Food Trucks Through Time
Source: u/LongjumpingDrag4 on Reddit
Prompts:
A food cart inspired by traditional Japanese design, made of bamboo and wood, glows with soft lanterns and neon accents. Cherry blossoms flutter in the twilight breeze, and the sky is painted in shades of pink and purple. Samurai and peasants in period-appropriate attire gather to taste the fusion dishes, their faces lit with the warm, inviting light. The background includes a traditional pagoda and a bamboo grove, capturing the delicate beauty of ancient Japan. --ar 4:3 --stylize 500 --niji 6
A food cart designed with Victorian architectural details, built from dark wood and wrought iron, stands on a cobblestone street at dawn. The early morning fog creates a mystical atmosphere. Londoners in Victorian attire gather around, enjoying their tea and crumpets. The background includes gas lamps, a horse-drawn carriage, and the silhouette of Big Ben, capturing the essence of Victorian London. --ar 4:3 --stylize 500 --niji 6
A food cart adorned with hieroglyphics and built from sun-baked clay and wood, is parked near the pyramids at Giza at sunrise. The golden light of the morning sun casts long shadows on the desert sands. Egyptians in traditional attire gather around, enjoying the food. The background includes the pyramids, the Sphinx, and palm trees, capturing the grandeur of Ancient Egypt. --ar 4:3 --stylize 500 --niji 6
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