Without this intel would just have died a slow death IMO. The end to end model has given way to designers like ARM using foundries in Taiwan and South Korea. It was IBM that last baled out Intel in the early eighties because they had, stupidly, selected the mediocre 8088 processor for the IBM PC. And it was the success of the IBM PC and its clones that made Intel a success.
It’s amusing to see a company that Intel would have regarded as just a graphics processor manufacturer now coming to their rescue. Having said that, I wonder what they’ll both do when the AI bubble bursts.
One thing is for certain, the announcements today of tens of billions of FDI by MS and others for “AI infrastructure” (read power and water hungry data centres) is bad news for the UK, not good. After the build out the residual jobs will be low skilled and few.
Whether these data centres will ever actually happen is another question though.
I know you don’t consider Keir Starmer to possess much in the way of Machiavellian cunning, John, but I wonder if the “AI announcements” have more to do with making the Orange Buffoon think the UK is “redressing the very unfair trade imbalance with the US” than actually having Microsoft et al use up all our wind power?
We shall see.
As you know my feeling is that they can take their AI and do something unmentionable with it.
LinkedIn is the latest one on the “give us your data for free” bandwagon - a banner popped up on my feed yesterday notifying me that they would be harvesting my content for AI purposes to “enhance my user experience”, unless I opted out.
Bring back the quill pen and the carrier pigeon, say I.
These data centres are a blot on the landscape and blight on humanity Chris. I can’t see MS turning down an offer to willingly have some
Embedded in all the bullshit yesterday there was a very sensible woman, professor of something, somewhere, that pointed out, and I might have a decimal wrong here or there, that one of these shitty companies, FB or someone, is building a centre in Texas, or some other ghastly US state, that will use 4 twigly watts of power and that the whole of the UK only uses 1.2 twigly watts (well, you know what I mean). They need to refine the software, not just keep throwing compute power at it, and restrain build outs until they have. This is bubble madness.
Initially there will be some benefit for the construction industry I suppose (but isn’t there a shortage of building skills?) but once the centres are commissioned they could be run by chimpanzees (with all due respect to our Hominidae pals) on roller skates.
Starmer just wants a big FDI number, he doesn’t care it’s bullshit. Normally I wouldn’t know if it was bullshit or not but I’ve been around data centres most of my professional life. When I retired the organisation I ran had probably the largest data centre in Ireland and definitely, including clients’ space, the most data centre space and compute power under management. We was mega
When you consider the AI putting people out of jobs only to rely somewhat on the state for income whilst some will vote for Farage who has openly stated you will take the job your given or after 40 days ish your benefits will stop. Great plan
