Openai believes that huge computing power is key driver

In the race to build a machine with human-level intelligence, it seems, size really matters. “We think the most benefits will go to whoever has the biggest computer,” said Greg Brockman, chairman and chief technology officer of Openai.

The San Francisco-based AI research group, set up four years ago by tech industry luminaries like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman, has just thrown down a challenge to the rest of the AI world.

Late last month, it raised $1bn from Microsoft to speed its pursuit of the Holy Grail of AI: a computer capable of so-called artificial general intelligence, a level of cognition that would match its makers, and which is seen as the final step before the advent of computers with superhuman intelligence.

According to Mr Brockman, that money — a huge amount for a research organisation — will be spent “within five years, and possibly much faster”, with the aim of building a system that can run “a human

brain-sized [AI] model”.

Whether a computer that matches the neural architecture in the human brain would deliver a comparable level of intelligence is another matter. Mr Brockman is wary about predicting precisely when AGI will arrive, and said that it would also require advances in the algorithms to make use of the massive increase in computing power.

But, speaking of the vast computing power that Openai and Microsoft hope to put at the service of its AI ambitions within five years, he added: “At that point, I think there’s a chance that will be enough.”

Openai’s huge bet points to a parting of the ways in the artificial intelligence world after a period of rapid advance. Deep learning systems, which use artificial neural networks modelled on one idea of how the human brain works, have provided most of the breakthroughs that have put AI back at the centre of the tech world. Openai argues that, with enough computing power behind them, there is a good chance that these networks will evolve further, right up to the level of human intelligence.