If you haven’t worked with the US government, you might not know Mitre, a non-profit government research organization. Formed in 1958 by the U.S. Air Force as a company to guide the SAGE computer, they are often research experts who oversee government contracts or evaluate proposals. Now they are building a $20 millon “AI Sandbox” for the Federal government to build AI prototypes.
Partnered with NVidia, the sandbox will use an NVidia GDX SuperPOD system capable of an exaFLOP of 8-bit AI computation. Mitre reports this will increase their compute power for AI by two orders of magnitude.
Access to the sandbox will be through one of the six federally funded R&D centers that Mitre operates on behalf of the government. These include centers that support the FAA, the IRS, Homeland Security, Social Security, health services, and cybersecurity with NIST. Of course, the DoD is likely in that mix, too.
So what do they (or the government) think they are going to do with all this AI power? We don’t know. But we are sure we’ll see some colorful guesses in the comments. The fact that it is through the R&D centers makes us think an AI might soon be sifting through your taxes soon or maybe routing your next airplane ride. We aren’t sure if that makes us feel better or worse.
AI servers seem to be the new supercomputer. The scary part is that what one generation considers a supercomputer, the next generation carries in their pocket.
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