Additionally, we could say that the The years 2022 and 2023 were the years of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a technology that became widespread in a very short term, shaping the way we interact with our devices, the link with information and knowledge, impacting thousands of sectors from the creation of texts, images and videos to e-commerce. Advances in algorithms, processing power and immensity of data have led AI to reach unprecedented levels of sophistication and autonomy.
It is no coincidence that within the top 10 companies with the highest market capitalization worldwide, 8 are in the technology sector: Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and TMSC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited) (Forbes,2023). In fact, large technology companies achieved record profits in 2023. Together, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon earned US$326,772 million, a record figure that exceeds that of the previous year by 25.6% and breaks the record added 2021 (El País, 2023).
If we compare these profits with those of energy companies, it is possible to see that in 2022, the six largest western oil companies such as BP, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total Energies accumulated more than US$200,000 millionthat is, technology companies have almost doubled the profits of one of the most important sectors of production globally (Financial Times, 2022).
The curious thing is that Microsoft, company led by Satya Nadella, has already become the most valuable in the world and exceeds three billion capitalization thanks to OpenAI and the integration of AI in its products and services. In 2023, the company increased its turnover by 11.5% to a record of US$227,583 million (El País, 2023).
Beyond this podium, all technology companies have launched, have a stake in, or incorporated AI tools into their catalog. For example, virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri with a market share of 36%, Alphabet’s Google Assistant with 36%, Microsoft’s Cortana with 25% and Amazon’s Alexa with 19%. Additionally, the use of these tools has expanded, Microsoft and ChatGPT with Open AI in Bing and Copilot, Apple with ASK, Google with Bard and Gemini, Amazon with Bedrock and Amazon-Q (Tecnopedia, 2024).
As a counterpart, In the Asian territory, Baidu launched Ernie 4.0 with similar performances to ChatGPT, Tencent Holdings, owner of WeChat with Hunyuan, which offers a Model as a Service for companies that can create texts and images, and Alibaba with Tongyi Qianwen, which is a chatbot aimed at companies (Cointelegraph, 2023).
He The material support of most AIs is based on hundreds of data centers with thousands of microprocessors working simultaneously. The thirst for energy and water that server farms consume to run generative AI is even more intense. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, warned at the Davos forum that future AI would consume so much electricity that it would require a major energy breakthrough (e.g. nuclear fusion) to power it (Financial Times, 2024).
The high demand for chips is provided by few companies, including Nvidiawhich has recently achieved outstanding leadership after reaching US$2 billion in its market capitalization.
In this context, Nvidia today it is the main supplier of AI chips for companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Google (Wired, 2024). The manufacturer of microprocessors and graphics cards managed to exceed all analysts’ expectations, achieving a net profit of US$29,760 million, which represents an increase of 581.3% compared to the earnings of US$4,368 million for the year. previous (Europa Press, 2024; Forbes Argentina, 2024).
The company has worked hard in the world of gaming and cryptocurrenciesbut this new chapter dates back to 2020, when Nvidia launched the A100 it was a milestone in GPU-accelerated computing, offering exceptional processing power that was widely used in AI tasks and deep learning (Xataca, 2020; Nvidia, 2020).
The A100 stood out for its ability to train large-scale models and handle intensive workloads. Next, in March 2023, Nvidia came out with another chip, the H100, which was optimized to process large volumes of data and calculations at unprecedented speeds. At this point, Nvidia already maintained an 80% market share in AI accelerators (BBC, 2024). And, at the end of 2023, it announced a new model again, the H200, which surpasses the H100 chip (Nvidia, 2023). The H200 offers 141GB of memory at 4.8 terabytes per second, almost double the capacity and 2.4 times the bandwidth compared to the A100.
These improvements are crucial for the development of next-generation systems, and can also be implemented in all types of data centers, whether in-house facilities, in the Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, and the Edge (DLP News, 2023). Companies such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, They have already reserved their HGX H200 to deploy in their infrastructure and train the AI models of the future.
A no less important fact is that Nvidia is Fabless In other words, it does not have its own manufacturing plant for silicon wafers.. Instead, this type of company specializes in designing and marketing chips, while outsourcing manufacturing. Each Nvidia chip is produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited or TMSC, the 10th company in Forbes that accounts for 54% of the world’s total semiconductor production (IDC, 2023). Hence the importance of Taiwan in the technological war between the United States and China. The tensions expressed in the commercial sphere have generated a series of sanctions that directly affect this sector. In this way, under the pretext of the national security of both nations, they also seek to slow down innovation in China.
Nvidia owns a 90% share of the AI chip market in China. However, as a result of the lockdowns, companies such as Baidu and Tencent have purchased the Ascend 910B chip produced by Huawei Technologies, which offers similar performance to the A100. Meanwhile, Nvidia is preparing the H20, L20 and L2 chips, dedicated to the Chinese market and in accordance with US regulations, which, although they will have new functions, will have less power than the A100 from 2020 (CNBC, 2024).
The struggles between strategic projects represented by both imperialist powers highlight the strategic importance of this type of disruptive technologies in the 21st century. In this sense, it is observed thatthe increasing concentration in cutting-edge technological and highly complex sectorsmade evident through the figures listed, generates a fierce dispute over who leads or leads the way in this “new phase” (Aguilera, 2023).
As AI continues to transform various economic and military sectors, competition for dominance in this field intensifies, giving rise to disputes over intellectual property, national security and technological leadership. In this way, we observe that the use of AI has not only become a fundamental pillar of innovation and the transformation of production processes; It also intervenes as a digital mediation of current social relations and in the forms of access to knowledge.
Hence the importance of debating its genesis and its implications for social processes from a multidisciplinary approach that involves all actors in society, not necessarily to find the keys to its good use, but to warn, in the not too distant future. , the effects and consequences of its application under the prevailing social relations and thus build possible alternatives.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
