This week, Openai and Oracle shocked markets with a surprise of $ 300 billion, a five -year agreement, part of an increase in new businesses sent by the cloud provider’s stock. But maybe the markets should not have been taken by surprise. The agreement is a reminder that, despite Oracle’s heritage, the company continues to play an important role in AI infrastructure.
On the part of Openai, the deal was more revealing than the lack of details. For one, the willingness of the start to pay so much for the calculation provides a measurement of the appetite of the start – even if it is unclear where electricity comes to power or how to pay for it.
Chirag Dekate, vice president of the Gartner research company, told TechCrunch that it is clear why both sides are interested in this deal. It makes sense for Openai to work with several infrastructure providers, he noted. It also differentiates the company’s infrastructure – it spreads the risk to various cloud providers – and gives Openai an escalation advantage compared to competitors.
“Openai seems to gather one of the most comprehensive global AI supercomputing foundations for extreme scale, escalates where needed,” Dekate said. “This is quite unique. This is probably exemplary about what an ecosystem model should look like.”
Some industry observers were surprised to have Oracle participating, citing the company’s reduced role in the AI explosion compared to Cloud opponents such as Google, Microsoft Azure and AWS. But Dekate argues that observers should not be surprised: Oracle has collaborated with ultrasound before and provides infrastructure for Tiktok’s major US companies.
“During the decades, they have actually built the basic infrastructure capabilities that allowed them to offer extreme scale and performance as a key part of their cloud infrastructure,” Dekate said.
Payment and power
But even when the stock market is celebrating the deal, there are basic elements and there are questions about power and payment.
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Openai has made a series of infrastructure announcements in the past year, each with a price-popping price. Openai is committed to spending about $ 60 billion a year on calculation by Oracle and 10 billion $ for the development of custom AI chips with broadcom.
Meanwhile, Openai said in June that it hit $ 10 billion in annual repetitive revenue, from about $ 5.5 billion last year. This number includes revenue from the company’s consumer products, Chatgpt business products and its API. And while Sam Altman’s chief executive has painted a pink image of his future prospects for subscribers, products and revenue, the company is burning through billions of dollars each year.
Power is another question or more specifically when companies are planning to supply the energy needed to execute this level of calculation.
Industry observers predict a short -term impulse for gas, although solar and batteries are undoubtedly better positioned to provide energy earlier and lower costs in many markets. Technology companies also bet on nuclear.
Despite the moving market market, the energy impact of Openai’s expected growth is not entirely unexpected. Data centers are expected to consume 14% of all electricity in the US by 2040, according to one report The Rhodium group was published yesterday.
The computer has always been a restriction for AI companies, so much that investors have bought thousands of Nvidia brands to ensure that their newly established businesses have access to the power they need. Andreessen Horowitz bought over 20,000 GPUs, while Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross were rented access to a 4,000 GPU complex (though perhaps Meta now owns).
But the calculation is useless without power. To ensure that their data centers remain fermented, large technology companies have pulled the solar farms, the market for nuclear power plants and the ink agreements with geothermal start -ups.
So far, Openai has been relatively quiet on this front. CEO Sam Altman has placed several protruding bets in the energy sector, including Oklo, Helion, and AcquisitionBut the company itself has not dropped money in space like Google, Meta or Amazon.
With a 4.5 gigawatt calculation agreement, which can soon be changed.
The company can play an indirect role by paying Oracle to handle natural infrastructure – something with which he has extensive experience – just as Altman has invested in newly established businesses aligned with the future needs of Openai. This will leave the company “Light Asset Light”, which will undoubtedly thank its investors and help maintain its valuation according to other software -based AI companies and not with Legacy technology companies, which are burdened with precise infrastructure.
