Korean media: Sudden lead of China and the US, the era of AI surpassing gaps is about to come!

On August 19, the Korean newspaper "Hanminjok Daily" published an article stating, "Just as oil-producing countries have played a huge influence on the world stage, countries producing computing power will also have similar influence."

Professor Billy Redonvilla from the University of Oxford said in an interview with The New York Times, "In the AI era, computing power is a key resource." He believes that the new power of the 21st century comes from computing power, not just oil or capital.

In fact, to develop and operate cutting-edge AI models, it is necessary to have large-scale data centers composed of high-performance AI semiconductors, that is, computing infrastructure. The intense development of super intelligence in Silicon Valley, the competition for cutting-edge AI semiconductors, and the construction of AI clusters can also be interpreted from the perspective of the "global AI computing gap."

A representative example is the world's largest data center currently being built by OpenAI in Texas, USA, with an investment of 1.5 billion US dollars. This data center is larger than Central Park in New York, covering 3.405 million square meters, and even includes natural gas facilities for its own power generation. The center will be equipped with 400,000 high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) "Blackwell" chips from NVIDIA.

The problem is that the computing power gap between countries is intensifying. According to data from the University of Oxford, only 32 countries globally have dedicated AI data centers.

Furthermore, more than 90% of AI computing centers are still operated by the United States and China. American companies operate 87 AI computing centers, accounting for two-thirds, while Chinese companies operate 39, forming a dual-power system with the United States. Europe has only six, and the situation in other Asian regions, Latin America, and Africa is even worse.

If the development and application of AI technology depend on computing infrastructure concentrated in certain countries and companies, it may lead to a new form of geopolitical dependence. Countries without their own data centers will have to rely on foreign tech giants' computing power, just like relying on foreign power plants for electricity or oil-producing countries for oil.

The United Nations also warned of the dangers of being controlled by a few large tech companies in a report released last April, stating that "40% of global AI investment is made by 100 companies, most of which are located in the United States and China."

As the importance of AI technology continues to grow, the importance of data centers and high-performance AI infrastructure will inevitably increase, which may go beyond simple technological competition, widen the gap between AI nations, and develop into an issue directly related to national sovereignty.

South Korea is also unable to escape the global AI computing gap. Experts, policy planning, government support, and expanded private sector investment need to be carried out in complex ways. It is time to accurately understand the new changes in the global power structure brought by AI computing power and to formulate specific strategies.

Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1840885971040260/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.