Under Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership, Meta Platforms Inc. has danced into the metaverse this new and thrilling enterprise. It’s been dubbed Meta Compute, and its purpose is to turbocharge the company’s artificial intelligence infrastructure. On Monday, Zuckerberg took to Facebook to announce the launch. He underscored that the initiative will serve to address the energy needs and technical needs of the rapidly expanding AI industry.
Designed specifically to address the rapidly increasing scale of Meta’s AI workloads, Meta Compute delivers … The company is anticipating an enormous increase in electrical usage propelled by AI tools. Recent projections forecast that America’s electrical consumption will double in just the next 10 years. This growth could increase its demand from 5 gigawatts (GW) to a staggering 50 GW as AI applications increase. One gigawatt means one billion watts of power.
Zuckerberg noted, “Meta is planning to build tens of gigawatts this decade, and hundreds of gigawatts or more over time. How we engineer, invest, and partner to build this infrastructure will become a strategic advantage.” This announcement highlights the strategic significance of Meta Compute in positioning the company’s long-term vision to lead development of generative AI.
A few high-profile leaders are pushing the move. Among them is Santosh Janardhan, who has been with Meta since 2009 and is now responsible for global infrastructure. He’ll focus on the technical architecture and the software stack. Besides this, he will lead developer productivity, silicon program and data center fleet and network at Meta globally.
Daniel Gross came to Meta last year through Meta’s acquisition of his own company, Safe Superintelligence, which he cofounded with Ilya Sutskever. In concurrently making contributions to Meta Compute. Alongside Janardhan, they’re responsible for creating a nuclear-proof infrastructure to underpin Meta’s AI dreams.
Dina Powell McCormick, who recently assumed her new position as Meta’s president and vice chairman, is not alone in this respect. She works closely with governments and key stakeholders to construct, implement, invest in, and fund Meta’s infrastructure. Her continued involvement will be key as Meta trips into the challenges of a deeply embedded energy sector and regulatory landscape.
Zuckerberg further elaborated on the initiative’s goals: “We expect that developing leading AI infrastructure will be a core advantage in developing the best AI models and product experiences.” This piece of jargon is indicative of a larger trend among operators in the tech industry. Organizations are pouring big bucks into generative AI-ready cloud environments.
