Microsoft Bets Over $100 Billion on New AI Supercomputer, Raising Stakes in AI Arms Race

Microsoft is spending over $100 billion on a new supercomputer called "Stargate" to train OpenAI's next-generation AI models, which could pave the way for artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Stargate's massive price tag may convince companies like Amazon that they can't afford to compete with Microsoft in training cutting-edge AI models.

Stargate could be AI's "Star Wars" moment - signaling such high infrastructure costs that rival countries like China abandon competing directly and instead focus funds elsewhere.

OpenAI unveiled an extremely realistic AI voice cloning model but is limiting access over risks such as voice spoofing.

The EU categorized AI models over 10^25 FLOPS as high-risk, while the U.S. uses a higher 10^26 FLOPS threshold - this could force the EU to regulate many more companies than anticipated.