Meta Zuck: AIR SC Sort of Sketched Out

January 25, 2022

I read Facebook’s (Meta’s) blog post called “Introducing the AI Research SuperCluster — Meta’s Cutting-Edge AI Supercomputer for AI Research.” The AIR SC states:

Today, Meta is announcing that we’ve designed and built the AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) — which we believe is among the fastest AI supercomputers running today and will be the fastest AI supercomputer in the world when it’s fully built out in mid-2022.

Then this statement:

Ultimately, the work done with RSC will pave the way toward building technologies for the next major computing platform — the metaverse, where AI-driven applications and products will play an important role.

So the AIR SC is sort of real. The applications for the AIR SC are sort of metaverse. That’s not here either in my opinion.

So what’s going on? Here are my thoughts:

  1. Facebook wants to stake out conceptual territory claims as AT&T did with its non 5G announcements about the under construction 5G capabilities.
  2. Facebook wants to show that its AIR SC is bigger, better, faster, and more super than anything from the Amazon, Google, or other quasi-monopolies who want systems that will dominate the super computer league table for now and possibly forever unless government regulators or user behavior changes the game plan.
  3. Facebook believes the Silicon Valley marketing mantra, “Fake it until you make it” with a possible change. I interpret the announcement to say, “Over promise and under deliver.” I admit I have become jaded with the antics of these corporate giants who have been able to operate without meaningful oversight or what some might call ethical guidelines for a couple of decades.

In the old days, companies in the Silicon Valley mode did vaporware. The tradition continues? Sure, why not? There’s even a TikTok style video to get the AIR SC message across.

Stephen E Arnold, January 25, 2022

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