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UAE-Based G42 Partners On World’s Fastest AI Supercomputer
The machine, named Condor Galaxy, has been built to assist with generative AI projects and is over 20 times faster than its predecessor.
Condor Galaxy, the world’s “fastest AI training supercomputer”, has been built with assistance from G42, a UAE-based technology holding group. The machine is actually a network of nine interconnected AI supercomputers developed by US-based AI company Cerebras Systems.
Located in Santa Clara, California, the massive machine boasts 4 exaFLOPs of power and a staggering 54 million cores that will significantly reduce AI processing times.
G42 will use Condor Galaxy to train AI models across a variety of data sets and has already created and tested Arabic bilingual chat, healthcare, and climate study applications.
“Collaborating with Cerebras to rapidly deliver the world’s fastest AI training supercomputer and laying the foundation for interconnecting a constellation of these supercomputers across the world has been enormously exciting,” said Talal Alkaissi, CEO of G42 Cloud. “The partnership brings together Cerebras’ extraordinary compute capabilities, together with G42’s multi-industry AI expertise,” he added.
Training the latest AI models requires enormous computing power and specialized programming skills. ChatGPT, for example, relies on 175 billion parameters and uses 10,000 Nvidia GPUs to train its AI algorithms.
Condor Galaxy brings genuine innovation to these kinds of processes, as all computing is performed entirely without complex distributed programming languages. This means that large projects no longer require weeks or even months spent distributing work over thousands of GPUs.
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“Many cloud companies have announced massive GPU clusters that cost billions of dollars to build but are extremely difficult to use. Distributing a single model over thousands of tiny GPUs takes months from dozens of people with rare expertise,” noted Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras Systems. “CG-1 eliminates this challenge. Setting up a generative AI model takes minutes, not months, and can be done by a single person” he added.
The G42 and Cerebras partnership marks another step toward the democratization of AI. The combination of massive computing power and unique AI data sets should produce groundbreaking results and turbocharge hundreds of AI projects around the world.
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Lebanon Ministers Meet Visa Over National Digital Payment Platform
Finance and technology ministers say a comparative study and roadmap will follow before any decision on adopting a model.
Lebanon’s finance and technology ministers met representatives from Visa last week to discuss a proposed unified national digital payment platform for government services, according to a readout from the Ministry of Finance.
The meeting brought together Finance Minister Yassin Jaber, Minister of State for Technology and Artificial Intelligence Kamal Shehadeh, a Visa delegation, and experts from both ministries. Discussion focused on whether Lebanon could establish a single platform through which citizens and institutions would pay taxes, fees, fines and other official transactions electronically, using mobile phones and other digital channels.
The Visa delegation presented examples from countries that have adopted unified government payment platforms, including the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Estonia and Jordan. According to the readout, the examples were presented as having increased collection rates and expanded financial inclusion.
Talks covered settlement mechanisms, direct transfer to the treasury account, financial reconciliation, risk management, cybersecurity, fees, and an operational model that would involve the private sector. The parties agreed to continue technical and institutional consultations, prepare a comparative study, and develop an implementation roadmap before any decision on adopting a model for Lebanon.
Jaber said the Ministry of Finance had already enabled citizens to pay using credit cards and e-wallets through transfer companies, but described the proposed platform as a further step. He framed the development of electronic payment and collection systems as a priority within the ministry’s modernization plan.
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Shehadeh outlined the citizen-facing concept as a single mobile application through which users could settle obligations to ministries, government institutions and other bodies.
“The idea, in short, is that any citizen downloads an application on their mobile phone, through which they can pay all service obligations for all ministries, government institutions, or those owned by the Lebanese state, and others as well, as the platform is not limited only to state institutions,” he said.
Shehadeh added that the platform would not displace banks and money transfer companies that currently provide collection services to the state, calling it complementary to their work.
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