OpenAI announced a new initiative on Wednesday aimed at helping countries outside of the US build artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Dubbed OpenAI for Countries, the initiative is part of the Stargate Project that it announced in January. While Stargate Project is primarily focused on developing AI infrastructure in the US, the new initiative will help other countries in capacity development. OpenAI also wants to collaborate with governments of various countries to make them a stakeholders when it comes to the future direction of its AI models and technologies.
OpenAI’s Five-Step Plan to Help Countries Build AI Infrastructure
In a blog post, the San Francisco-based AI firm stated that representatives from multiple countries reached out to OpenAI to seek assistance in building AI infrastructure. Calling this infrastructure the “backbone of future economic growth and national development,” the company said it is willing to help these countries to spread “democratic AI.”
Explaining its democratic principle, OpenAI said it wants people to be able to choose how they work with and direct AI. It also wants to prevent governments’ use of AI to amass control and a free market that fosters competition. “All these things contribute to a broad distribution of the benefits of AI, discourage the concentration of power, and help advance our mission,” the company added.
With OpenAI for Countries, the AI firm has prepared a five-step plan to collaborate with governments of other countries to develop AI infrastructure. The first step includes partnering with interested countries to help build in-country data centre capacity. These will be secured to protect the sovereignty of the country. The AI firm said that the data centres will build new local industries and make it easier to customise AI in a private and compliant way.
The AI firm will also provide customised ChatGPT to the citizens. This chatbot will focus on the needs of a particular country and will be natively localised in their language and culture. The third step includes collaborating with the governments on the future direction of the company’s AI models.
“As our models become more powerful, we will continue to make investments in the processes and controls, including the data centre and physical security needed to deploy, operate and protect them,” OpenAI said.
Additionally, OpenAI will also raise and deploy a national start-up fund in collaboration with the governments. The fund would be used to seed a healthy AI ecosystem within the country. The company claims this will lead to the creation of new jobs, new enterprises, and revenue while supporting the needs of the public and private sectors.
Finally, OpenAI said that the partner countries would also invest in the expansion of the global Stargate Project to continue the growth of the democratic AI. Notably, the company will take on 10 projects in the first phase of the initiative.
