Non-profit linked to Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb invests $500M in AI chips

A non-profit group linked to Stellar co-founder and government Jed McCaleb intends to supply an AI chip rental service, Reuters reported on Oct. 30.

The startup in query, Voltage Park, has reportedly bought 24,000 Nvidia H100 chips valued at $500 million. The corporate plans to lease these sources out as a cloud service in order that different companies can work with artificial intelligence (AI).

Voltage Park will supply each long-term and short-term entry plans and intends to deploy the chips round February 2024, in keeping with Reuters.

The rental entry mannequin is meant to deal with shortages in AI chips. Although exact availability is unclear, corporations, together with Microsoft and OpenAI, have reported shortages, in keeping with one latest CNN report. OpenAI has even thought-about producing its own AI chips as an answer to the scarcity, different experiences point out.

Cloud rental fashions, in contrast, enable smaller corporations and builders to remotely entry AI chips and laptop sources on a brief foundation.

Voltage Park has ties to Stellar’s Jed McCaleb

Voltage Park has hyperlinks to a notable cryptocurrency determine, Jed McCaleb, co-founder and Chief Architect of the blockchain agency Stellar. McCaleb can also be a co-founder of Ripple and a co-founder of the failed early cryptocurrency alternate Mt. Gox.

Although McCaleb isn’t immediately concerned in Voltage Park, the corporate is a completely owned subsidiary of McCaleb’s non-profit group, Navigation Fund. The mum or dad group will obtain all of Voltage Park’s earnings, in keeping with present experiences.

Voltage Park isn’t the one crypto-related agency that’s shifting into AI and chip leases. In September, reports suggested that stablecoin agency Tether had entered an settlement with a Bitcoin mining agency known as Northern Knowledge to offer cloud entry to AI chips.

Cloud chip leases are in any other case dominated by main tech companies, similar to Nvidia and Google Cloud. It’s unclear whether or not smaller companies will be capable to compete.