According to Bloomberg, OpenAI trained ChatGPT on a supercomputer Microsoft built from tens of thousands of Nvidia A100 GPUs. Microsoft announced a new array utilizing Nvidia’s newer H100 GPUs this week.
The challenge facing the companies started in 2019 after Microsoft invested $1 billion into OpenAI while agreeing to build an AI supercomputer for the startup. However, Microsoft didn’t have the hardware in-house for what OpenAI needed.
After acquiring Nvidia’s chips, Microsoft had to rethink how it arranged such a massive number of GPUs to prevent overheating and power outages. The company won’t say precisely how much the endeavor cost, but executive vice president Scott Guthrie put the number above several hundred million dollars.
