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Facebook’s Meta Says New Supercomputer Will Be World’s Fastest

Facebook's parent Meta says it has created a powerful supercomputer that it expects to be the world's fastest when it is completed later this year.

The company recently announced the computer will be used to create better artificial² intelligence (AI) models and to improve operations that process huge amounts of data.

Supercomputers are made up of hundreds or thousands of powerful machines. They work together to perform complex operations that are not possible with normal computing³ systems.

Meta's supercomputer is currently⁴ operating. The company calls it the AI Research SuperCluster, or RSC. In a statement, the company said RSC "will help Meta's AI researchers build better AI models that can learn from trillions of examples."

The company did not provide information on where the computer is kept or how much money is being spent to build it.

An AI system can be trained to recognize different kinds of content and perform actions examining huge amounts of data. Such systems require very powerful computers.

Meta said its supercomputer will be able to process written information, images and video that is in hundreds of different languages. Meta said the computing system can process images and video up to 20 times faster than current systems. The company is expected to use the system for its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services.

The company said it believes RSC is currently one of the world's five fastest supercomputers. It said RSC would become the fastest when it is fully⁵ operating.

In addition, Meta said it hopes RSC will help in the development of completely new AI systems. One example is a planned tool that would permit real-time voice translations to large groups of people interacting⁷ in business or social situations.

Such an operation fits with Meta's stated goal of developing technologies to be used in a future "metaverse." Metaverse is a term used to describe a non-physical world in which individuals interact⁶ through different kinds of digital technology.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook message: "The experiences we're building for the metaverse require enormous⁸ compute¹ power (quintillions of operations [a] second!)..."

Meta uses a combination⁹ of human moderators and AI to identify and remove, what it considers, harmful content and misinformation. Some critics say the company is not doing enough to block bad content. It has also faced government scrutiny¹⁰ over its privacy¹¹ and business methods in the United States and Europe.

In a statement, the company said its supercomputer will be helpful in "critical use cases like identifying harmful content."

Diego Naranjo is the head of policy for European Digital Rights. It is a group of non-governmental organizations seeking to restrict¹² the power of large technology companies. He told the French press agency¹³ AFP that he recognizes Facebook has made some efforts to protect users¹⁴' privacy and limit harmful content.

But he questioned what the company might do with such a powerful new tool. "Nothing good can come from all that computer power in the hands of such a tech superpower," Naranjo said.

Meta said its supercomputer will use "real-world examples" from its own systems during the process to train its AI.

"They are going to, for the first time, put their customer data on their AI research computer," said Tuomas Sandholm. He is a computer science professor and co-director of the AI center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Sandholm said it marked "a really big change" for Facebook to give its AI researchers and computing systems access to all that data.

Meta said the data used to train AI models will go through a "privacy review process" to ensure that it is not linked to individual users. It added that the data will also be encrypted before entering the training process.

Words in This Story

artificial intelligence – n. an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence

translation – n. the changing of written or spoken words from one language into another

enormous – adj. very large

moderator – n. someone who makes sure that a formal discussion¹⁵ happens without problems and follows the rules

scrutiny – n. careful examination¹⁶ in a critical way

customer – n. someone who buys goods or services from a business

access – n. the right or chance to use of look at something

encrypt – v. to change (information) from one form to another especially to hide its meaning