Billy Perrigo
When we think of the “cloud,” we often imagine data floating invisibly in the ether. But the reality is far more tangible: the cloud is located in huge buildings called data centers, filled with powerful, energy-hungry computer chips. Those chips, particularly graphics processing units (GPUs), have become a critical piece of infrastructure for the world of AI, as they are required to build and run powerful chatbots like ChatGPT.
As the number of things you can do with AI grows, so does the geopolitical importance of high-end chips—and where they are located in the world. The U.S. and China are competing to amass stockpiles, with Washington enacting sanctions aimed at preventing Beijing from buying the most cutting-edge varieties. But despite the stakes, there is a surprising lack of public data on where exactly the world’s AI chips are located.
A new peer-reviewed paper, shared exclusively with TIME ahead of its publication, aims to fill that gap. “We set out to find: Where is AI?” says Vili Lehdonvirta, the lead author of the paper and a professor at Oxford University’s Internet Institute. Their findings were stark: GPUs are highly concentrated in only 30 countries in the world, with the U.S. and China far out ahead. Much of the world lies in what the authors call “Compute Deserts:” areas where there are no GPUs for hire at all.
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