Star Wars in Artificial Intelligence

How to cope and indeed, how to succeed in the world of dual intelligence, where human intelligence has to evolve faster than the rapid spread of artificial intelligence

The last few weeks have been amazing with rapid developments in the art and science of artificial intelligence. My purpose here is to demystify the rapid series of happenings and share my thoughts on how to cope and indeed, how to succeed in the world of dual intelligence, where human intelligence has to evolve faster than the rapid spread of artificial intelligence.

DeepSeek’s “small is beautiful” approach enables alternative models of using AI for corporate and public good to emerge from research labs in China and possibly Japan, India, Vietnam, Korea, and in future Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Ever since OpenAI took the world by storm and launched ChatGPT, and Nvidia started rolling out its enormous GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) that provided all the power needed for LLMs (Large Learning Models) to be built and trained using every conceivable data source in the world, the world has been watching closely the developments in Artificial Intelligence in the USA and more recently China.

Despite the protests from climate change activists at the enormous energy guzzling demands of GPUs and LLMs (Large Language Models), applications have burgeoned in areas ranging from architecture, engineering and construction to media and entertainment, automotive, scientific research, and manufacturing design. They have necessitated investments in edge-to-cloud computing and in supercomputers and workstations for applications in these fields.

The major announcement of the Trump administration has been Stargate, the massive 500 billion USD joint venture with large software providers Oracle and OpenAI, as key partners. This initiative aims to boost AI infrastructure in the US, creating over 1,00,000 jobs and securing America's leadership in the AI contest. It has also been conceptualised with multiple partners — Nvidia and Microsoft will continue to be the key technology partners, Oracle will be a technology contributor and also a major infrastructure enabler, and OpenAI will lead the project’s operations with SoftBank overseeing the financial commitments of various parties into the project.

With an initial investment of 100 billion USD already in place and plans to deploy the balance 400 billion USD over the next four years, one can expect 20 massive data centres, each spanning over 5,00,000 square feet to come up. This will be a key enabler to the new approach to industrialisation in the US and enable the country to lead in the much-anticipated advent of Artificial General Intelligence(AGI) and somewhere in the not-so distant future, the awesome and somewhat scary Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI).

"The world has been watching closely the developments in Artificial Intelligence in the USA and more recently China"

Stargate underlines the MAGA vision of America being the creator and leader for all that is good and great for mankind. The approach builds on the big investment leadership of Nvidia and the Large Language Models (LLMs) of Open AI and will give the US the dominant status in high investment, high energy consuming AI infrastructure. Some critics have suggested that the new “sandwich” that is being created with Stargate will enable a strong base of infrastructure that cuts across industries and a top layer for market facing technology aggregators like Meta, Amazon and Google. This could create an economic framework for AI development and deployment in the future, by which all early players will create and capture enormous opportunity share and resultant market value, and simply change the rules of competition for everyone else.

Even as some of us were worried at this thought, China launched DeepSeek, a clever model that distils all the data processed by LLMs and puts it into a chain of processing and reasoning, that enables 90 per cent of results sought by humans to be processed with alacrity, at a fraction of the cost. As said earlier, this “small is beautiful” approach enables alternative models of using AI for corporate and public good to emerge from research labs in China and possibly Japan, India, Vietnam, Korea, and in future Israel and Saudi Arabia. All these countries including India can develop smaller but more flexible and narrow language model. Point AI and Application AI solutions can abound through Small Language Models (SLMs) from China and possibly India and reinvent the future of AI.

A research report recently released by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, positioned the US far ahead of China and all others primarily because of the large 60 billion dollar plus investment by the private sector in AI, as compared to just about a tenth of that in China. However, with the new twist that the AI race has taken, the playing field may have been levelled again, and it will take the better part of 2025, to clearly call out the new winners in the AI games.

For you and me, and all of us, particularly leaders of the corporate world, it is best to go back to the drawing board and develop a clear strategy for Data Management, Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics and of course Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and clearly define the touch points which can enhance the experience of every stakeholder – customer, employee, business partner and shareholder.

Approaching this in a clear spirit of dual intelligence will ensure that every leader and every associate is confident of their understanding of data and AI, and can play their role in the furthering of corporate and social causes. Taking help from experts and eventually developing one’s own expertise and confidence is the way to a more enlightened world.