NVIDIA's Granary Dataset & Rigetti's Quantum Leap: AI's Next Frontier - Silicon Brief #31

Hi there,

In this edition of Silicon Brief, we delve into the latest developments in AI chips and data centers. NVIDIA has released the Granary Dataset and new speech AI models, marking a significant step in AI technology advancements. Meanwhile, Rigetti Computing has launched a 36-qubit quantum computer on the cloud, showcasing the growing intersection of quantum computing and AI. These innovations highlight the rapid pace of technological progress in the AI hardware sector.

On the data center front, Rio has partnered with Oracle and Nvidia for an ambitious AI city project, while Vast Data and SK Telecom are collaborating on an AI cluster. Additionally, DayOne is set to build a EUR 1.2 billion data center in Finland, reflecting the increasing demand for robust AI infrastructure. These projects underscore the critical role of data centers in supporting the burgeoning AI industry.

Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic has highlighted the potential of small modular nuclear reactors to power AI, positioning the company as a leader in meeting AI's energy needs with contracts in the UK and Czech Republic. Meanwhile, a report by EPRI and Epoch AI forecasts that electricity demand for training large AI models could exceed 50 gigawatts by 2030, driven by the increasing complexity of AI models.

Mistral AI has achieved a 2.5x increase in model training speeds by utilizing NVIDIA's GB200 NVL72 infrastructure through CoreWeave.
Dell Technologies has updated its AI Data Platform to improve access to unstructured data for generative AI applications, featuring a new data engine developed with Elastic and the PowerEdge R7725 server with Nvidia GPUs.

The U.S. government is considering investing in Intel Corp. to bolster domestic manufacturing, focusing on a delayed chip factory in Ohio. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are monitoring AI chip shipments from Dell and Supermicro to prevent diversion to China, aligning with export restrictions to limit military access to advanced technology.

Rio de Janeiro City Hall has partnered with Oracle and Nvidia to launch the 'Rio AI City' project, aiming to position the city as a global AI hub. Meanwhile, Vast Data and SK Telecom are collaborating on the Haein AI cluster in South Korea, utilizing Nvidia Blackwell GPUs to offer GPU-as-a-Service, enhancing AI infrastructure across various sectors.

NVIDIA has released the Granary dataset, featuring 1 million hours of audio to enhance multilingual speech recognition and translation for 25 European languages. Meanwhile, Rigetti Computing has launched its 36-qubit quantum computer, Cepheus-1-36Q, on its cloud platform, with plans to offer it on Microsoft Azure soon.