Intel Responds to White House AI Initiative

By Doug Black

March 6, 2019

The Trump Administration’s release last month of the “American AI Initiative,” aimed at prioritizing federal R&D investments in machine intelligence, has stirred major debate in Washington and the technology industry. Intel has jumped into the discussion, issuing a lengthy reaction to the White House order that, in common with other responses,  calls for more details and  for spending commitments.

“It’s time for the U.S. to bet big on AI by building on the Executive Order to develop and adopt a National AI Strategy that includes specific measures to support and promote AI development and deployment,” Intel said. “A comprehensive national AI strategy would earmark funding and resources for AI research and development, outline clear goals and accountability mechanisms, identify and remove barriers, drive public and private development and adoption of AI, and outline a program to mitigate negative or unintended consequences.”

The Administration’s broadly drawn order (see “White House Launches AI Initiative”) calls for efforts “to sustain and enhance the scientific, technological, and economic leadership position of the United States in AI R&D and deployment,” and is intended to align early AI investments by federal science and technology agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), with industry efforts. The plan also seeks to increase access to federal data and HPC resources, as well as workforce training programs to develop “AI-relevant skills,” such as $30 million in research grants under a program called “Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier.”

An impetus for the White House initiative is China’s “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” issued in 2017, which has raised American national security and global business competitiveness concerns. Critics of the White House initiative point out that various states and cities in China have committed more than $20 billion to AI research.

A key aspect of Intel’s recommended strategy is for the federal government, beyond making budget commitments to AI development, to serve as a focal point for AI policies both within federal agencies and technology companies.

“As AI is adopted, implementation of federal policies will be critical to help ensure the most effective and responsible use of AI,” Intel said, “setting in place clear ethical frameworks to guide development, and educating the public for better understanding of the uses and benefits of this technology. Mandated adoption of AI systems throughout the government will enable the advancement of AI and serve as a convener of best practices among multiple stakeholders, including academia, industry and civil society. Positioned as a hub for information and skills sharing, the government can expand AI development and adoption through public-private collaboration and cross-sector partnerships. This will enable the U.S. to develop and deploy AI technology more quickly throughout the economy.”

Other highlights of the Intel plan include:

Data Policy

Noting that as access increases to reliable data “the more ‘intelligent’ AI systems become,” Intel said the need for data “must be coupled with privacy protections and comprehensive ethical measures.”

“The adoption of comprehensive federal privacy legislation, and policies that require accountability for ethical design and implementation, are critical to ensuring protections are in place for efficient data sharing practices that mitigate potential individual and societal harm. With these policy protections in place data sharing can be a benefit, not a burden. Increased access to government data sources in machine readable formats across borders and jurisdictions will provide AI practitioners with a wide variety of data to help train AI systems.  The adoption of international data interoperability standards will help speed the development and adoption of AI systems, and increase the efficiency of data sharing processes.”

Ultimately, Intel said, government-led establishment of data standards will “increase willingness and comfort with sharing information with the public and private sectors… The government can also increase the inclination to share data by investing in privacy-preserving AI research, which allows academic and industrial labs access to training data while protecting it from being reverse engineered.”

Employment and Training

As AI impacts and changes the worlds of business and work, Intel stated that “a multifaceted effort is needed to put the U.S. on a fast track to ensure AI employment opportunities and upward mobility for U.S. citizens.” Government, Intel said, “needs to invest in the development of a workforce that creates AI, cultivate a workforce that uses AI, and mitigate potential negative impacts of AI-caused employment displacement.”

This requires federal and local government agencies to study AI’s impact on the American workforce and then, “in collaboration with industry, can implement targeted initiatives and programs to help develop the workforce and alleviate job transitions and loss.”

“…an AI economy will require a new approach to our nation’s education system,” Intel said. “This approach includes an overhaul of the educational curriculum to focus on critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills. Dedicated federal funding for grants, scholarships, and fellowships focused on building AI skillsets will also increase opportunities to develop and sustain an AI workforce.”

Legal and Regulatory Reform

Another portion of the Intel plan is to revamp “the existing regulatory and policy landscape to identify and remove any barriers to the development and adoption of AI, while legislation and policies that help promote the responsible and ethical development of AI should be advanced.”

The goal is achieving a balance between proliferation of AI while also building “a safe environment where government and industry work in tandem. Government should avoid requiring companies to transfer or provide access to technologies, source code, algorithms or encryption keys as conditions of doing business, and support the use of all available tools, including trade agreements and diplomacy, to achieve these ends.”

“The U.S. faces a great opportunity with AI to increase global competitiveness, improve the quality of life for the citizenry, and maintain its leadership stance on the world stage,” Intel said. “Fostering innovation and development of AI, encouraging responsible data sharing, creating employment opportunities, and easing regulatory hurdles will ensure a U.S. big bet on AI will pay off in multitudes.”

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire