New supercomputing network could lead to AGI, scientists hope, with 1st node coming online within weeks

Researchers plan to accelerate the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) with a worldwide network of extremely powerful computers — starting with a new supercomputer that will come online in September.

Artificial intelligence (AI) spans technologies including machine learning and generative AI systems like GPT-4. The latter offer predictive reasoning based on training from a large data set — and they can often surpass human capabilities in one particular area, based on their training data. They are sub-par at cognitive or reasoning tasks, however, and cannot be applied across disciplines.

AGI, by contrast, is a hypothetical future system that surpasses human intelligence across multiple disciplines — and can learn from itself and improve its decision-making based on access to more data.

The supercomputers, built by SingularityNET, will form a "multi-level cognitive computing network" that will be used to host and train the architectures required for AGI, company representatives said in a statement.

These include elements of advanced AI systems such as deep neural networks, which mimic the functions of the human brain; large language models (LLMs), which are large sets of data AI systems train on; and multimodal systems that connect human behaviors such as speech and movement inputs with multimedia outputs. This is similar to what you would see from AI videos.

Building a new AI supercomputer network

The first of the supercomputers will start to come online in September, and work will be completed by the end of 2024 or early 2025, company representatives told LiveScience, depending on supplier delivery timelines.

Related: 22 jobs artificial general intelligence (AGI) may replace — and 10 jobs it could create