Kunle Olukotun

"The whole goal is, of course, to provide the capabilities to be able to train very, very large, accurate models. If you look at the current landscape of computing capabilities, mostly dominated by GPUs, what you need is many, many GPUs because of the limited amount of memory that each of the GPUs can have."

"What SambaNova brings to the table is the ability one or two or a quarter rack of capability to be able to provide terabytes of memory. And so that allows you to build huge models that can serve any of the particular industrial verticals or commercial verticals that are of interest."

"For instance, huge natural language processing models for the financial sector or for developing chatbots and customer services, voice-based commerce. Also, natural language processing, finds use in cancer research also."

"Or huge vision models that we call true resolution that allow you to do medical images without reducing the resolution to make the image more blurry, so that you can fit it into the memory requirements of conventional systems."

"And again, you want to be able to handle those large embedding tables because the larger the embedding table, the more accurate the model, the better recommendation you’re able to give."

"And so what you want is the capability to both do large batch training very efficiently, but also to single-batch inference very efficiently. And so we can do that with the SambaNova systems."

"So think of SambaNova systems as this capability of doing training and inference very efficiently. And then the real full circle: Once you can do training and inference on the same platform, you can dynamically switch between them."

"I am a self-made entrepreneur. I started off as a small-time writer, now I own publishing and IT companies. I do what the hell I want to do."

"I think it’s a great idea to develop AI talent outside of traditional hubs like the Bay Area. Personally, I’m from Nigeria, so I see the value in growing research and innovation in regions that might not be the typical focus."

"Right now, AI is still just a very advanced tool. It doesn’t have the ability to make its own decisions or have its own goals like humans do. To be human, you need to have agency, a purpose, and a soul. AI hasn’t reached that level yet. Maybe in the far future, it’s possible, but it’s still a long way off—probably around 50 years."

"AI’s potential to replace jobs is one of the biggest societal challenges. Just like how the industrial revolution reduced the need for physical labor in factories, AI and automation are making certain jobs obsolete. This raises crucial questions about the future of work and how society will adapt. What will humans do when robots can perform tasks like driving, cleaning, or even teaching? It’s a problem that requires long-term thinking, especially since automation leads to greater wealth concentration in the hands of a few."

"I’m deeply concerned about the political response to climate change. The failure to address it is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. Politicians often avoid making difficult decisions, choosing short-term gains over long-term solutions. I think we need leaders who will make the tough choices, like former President Obama tried to do, but unfortunately, this is a challenge that’s far from being solved."

"The idea of AI replacing politicians is far-fetched, but AI can certainly influence how politics work."