News｜Microsoft and OpenAI's Ambitious Pursuit of AI Supremacy with $100 Billion Investment

According to The Information, Microsoft and OpenAI plan to invest $100 billion to build the "Stargate" AI supercomputer. The next major upgrade of OpenAI is expected to land early next year. Microsoft executives aim to release the "Stargate" AI supercomputer as early as 2028. Additionally, Microsoft and OpenAI plan to develop data center projects for AI.

According to media reports, as early as 2019, Microsoft invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build a super server for OpenAI's training. The West China Computer Team released a research report on May 2, 2023, stating that AI reserves are not built overnight, and Microsoft has been laying out for many years. Century Internet Blue Cloud is the only operator of Microsoft's intelligent cloud services in China. Azure's 5 data centers in China are all operated by Century Internet. In terms of cloud business, Century Internet has close cooperation with manufacturers such as Foxconn, Shenzhou Information, ZTE, and Tsinghua Unigroup. Among them, Industrial Fulian's enterprise servers, storage, and ultra-large-scale architecture cloud computing shipments rank among the top globally, with the world's largest shipments of cloud computing servers, supplying international giants such as Microsoft and Google, as well as computing power giants such as Intel and NVIDIA have close cooperation.

Microsoft's main cloud partners include Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) and Azure Expert Managed Service Providers (MSPs), as well as Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), etc. Azure Expert Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are the highest level of certification Microsoft provides to partners for Azure cloud service capabilities. Microsoft's MSPs in China mainly include Nanyang Wanbang (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cloud Sai Zhilian), Xinuo Times (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cloud Sai Zhilian), Shanghai Yunjiao (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhou Digital), etc. Microsoft's Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) in China are divided into three levels, with five higher-level distributors, namely: Shenzhou Digital, China Construction Information, Weishi Jiajie, Yingmai, and Xinjusi. According to the disassembly of Microsoft's industry chain, analysts believe that beneficiaries include Shenzhou Information, Twower Information, and Industrial Fulian in the computing power field, distributors/cloud delivery Shenzhou Digital, Cloud Sai Zhilian, technical outsourcing companies Boya Technology, Softland, advertising agents Blue Cursor, scenario application terminal Foxit Software, Wanning Technology, Caiyun Shares, Handi Information, Kingsoft Office, Focus Technology, and Shenzhou Taiyue, etc.

Recently, the enterprise foundation behind Novo Nordisk announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to build an AI supercomputer named Gefion in Denmark. The computer will run NVIDIA's AI technology and its main goal is to discover new drugs and treatment methods. This wave of enthusiasm has spilled over into the A-share secondary market, with Berry Gene, which independently developed the NLPearl genetic disease AI clinical decision support system, closing at the limit for three consecutive days on March 20th, and Seli Medical, which has multiple AI medical service products, also securing three consecutive limit-up days. Runda Medical, which has developed and built the PR-GPT multimodal large-scale language AI model, surged nearly 15% intraday and its stock price approached a historical high; Pharmaceutical Stone Technology, which develops AI drug discovery technology platforms, closed up more than 14%.

Supercomputers, also known as high-performance computers or giant computers, can perform calculations at speeds of tens of billions of times per second, which are tens of millions of times faster than ordinary computers. According to data, the National Supercomputing Center is a data computing institution established with the approval of the Ministry of Science and Technology and is a unit under the Ministry of Science and Technology. As of August 2023, China has approved the establishment of 11 National Supercomputing Centers. From the perspective of participants in the supercomputing industry chain, upstream manufacturers of basic hardware and software mainly include foreign well-known enterprises such as Intel, AMD, HPE, Samsung, and Dell, while domestic enterprises are relatively lagging behind, with domestic manufacturers mainly including Huawei Hisilicon, Changjiang Storage, and Parallel Computing, etc. In terms of application software, representative enterprises include Zhongwang Software, Intel Simulation, Sushite Technology, and Suochen Technology. The midstream supercomputing resource providers are mainly divided into two categories: one is supercomputer manufacturers represented by Lenovo, Inspur, and Sugon, which provide commercial supercomputing products including supercomputing software and hardware products; the other is supercomputer research institutions represented by National University of Defense Technology, National Parallel Computer Engineering Technology Research Center, Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, and Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The supercomputing systems they develop are deployed in National Supercomputing Centers across the country.