Google DeepMind CEO on the AI tricks up the company’s sleeve
Google has found a cheaper way to run AI models, one of the tricks up its sleeve that could give it a long-term edge in the high-stakes race between the largest tech companies, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis said in an interview with Semafor.
For years, the compute power used in generative artificial intelligence was concentrated in the “pre-training” phase, when a raw AI model is initially created. But as models have evolved, the demands of running them — known as inference — have grown.
If an AI model were a brain, inference would be akin to thinking. And it turns out thinking longer can drastically increase a model’s capabilities. That means the compute power available to AI companies today isn’t sufficient to extract the full value of the technology.
Hassabis said new processors — known as “light chips” — are in the works that could make it more cost-effective to run the models.
