The First $500M, 10,0000 GPU, AI Sovereign Territory – with Nation-state as a Service Offerings?

11/15/2023 | Written by: Daniel Pereira

Vice News best captured the import of this story: “But there’s one glaring issue: Del Complex is not a real AI company, and its barge is similarly fake.” Apparently, certain media elements to support the story are AI-generated, including “some of the images on its otherwise convincing-looking website have the hallmarks of being the product of AI-generation, including garbled text and strange facial features.” So, it is all a fictional scenario – which is also highly effective use of storytelling to point out the potential future of “technological sovereignty” – and the future unintended consequence of organizations looking to skirt global regulation efforts.

As our readership knows, we often run analysis of real-world stories and projects which map to the future world described in Kim Stanely Robinson’s Ministry of the Future. But this story even transcends the potential networked states as laid out in the MotF….

The first AI nation?

A ship with 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs worth $500 million could become the first ever sovereign territory that relies entirely on artificial intelligence for its future

The BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster would be a roaming AI powerhouse at sea

Source: Del Complex

As reported by TechRadar: “A floating data center containing thousands of NVIDIA GPUs has raised questions over whether the practice could result in the creation of sovereign AI states in the future. The BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster (BSFCC), created by US firm Del Complex, is essentially a gargantuan barge containing 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs worth a combined $500 million. In an announcement on X (formerly Twitter), Del Complex said the floating data center will offer “industry leading performance, advanced water cooling and solar power for environmental safety”. This will be complemented by “kinetic risk mitigation” provided by an on-board security team.

Swerving AI regulations

The firm described the BSFCC as the “pinnacle of compute and autonomy”.

Autonomy, it seems, is the key focus here for Del Complex. The idea behind the project points toward the eventual creation of ‘sovereign nation states’ dedicated to AI development. In its announcement on X, the firm said the tightly-guarded barge could operate in international waters, and thus potentially be exempt from international AI regulations. The claims from Del Complex come in the wake of growing discussions over the global regulation of AI in recent months. Earlier this week, US president Joe Biden signed an executive order [which] will see US agencies create new standards for AI safety and security, and will likely act as a precursor to any upcoming legislative action on the technology. Del Complex appears to believe the BSFCC will help organizations avoid this regulatory scrutiny due to the fact the data center is located in a maritime “no man’s land”.

‘Government overreach not only stalls the pace of innovation, but also interferes with the cosmic endowment of humanity,’ the firm said. ‘With rising global concerns about the stringent regulation of AI model training, Del Complex offers a sanctuary in international waters.’ ‘BSFCC is the solution to…the ongoing draconian AI regulations and oversight…the need to scale your frontier models exponentially…the risk posed by housing your compute in traditional cloud compute platforms’ Long-term, the plan could eventually involve a fleet of floating data centers roaming international waters to allow users to circumvent both regulations and, notably, tax obligations. ‘Each BSFCC operates as its own sovereign nation state deep in international waters, free from the constraints of regulatory bodies,’ Del Complex explained. ‘These networked states are untouched by decelerationist rhetoric, and offer additional benefits as tax shelter opportunities.’”

Is a Rogue AI Company Training Powerful AI on a Barge to Avoid U.S. Regulations?

…there’s one glaring issue: Del Complex is not a real AI company, and its barge is similarly fake.

Vice also took a crack at the validity of the company and the BSFCC project:

Del Complex, which advertises itself as an AI research company, announced the “BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster,” or BSFCC, in an X post on Monday. The BSFCC is supposedly a solar-powered barge loaded with 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, which are designed for AI training and cost $30,000 each. Del Complex calls the barge a “sovereign nation state” complete with its own security forces. “The Biden admin’s AI Executive Order and the EU’s AI Act aim to centralize control under guise of safety,” Del Complex wrote in its post. “The solution is at sea.”

The first tip-off is that Del Complex describes itself as an “alternate reality corporation.” Some of the images on its otherwise convincing-looking website have the hallmarks of being the product of AI-generation, including garbled text and strange facial features. One image features two women in hazmat suits eating what looks like a jumbled combination of a soup and salad using gigantic fork-spoons. Finally, Del Complex is selling NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain as well as clothing merch.

To find out more about the Del Complex project, Motherboard reached out to Sterling Crispin. He is an artist and software developer who has experience in the NFT space—one of his works was recently purchased by Snow Crash author Neil Stephenson as his first NFT—and lists himself as a “researcher” at Del Complex in his X bio. Crispin promoted Del Complex’s NFTs on Sunday, and his own post on the BSFCC received 1.2 million views on X.

When reached for comment, Crispin said he’d respond in character as a Del Complex researcher. Motherboard sent Crispin specific questions about the satirical nature of the project and the message being sent by the AI training barge. “The BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster is part of the global resilience efforts at Del Complex,” Crispin said in an email. “It fits into their overall mission to accelerate human potential through the symbiosis of AGI, neural prosthetics, robotics, clean energy, resilience solutions, and fundamental scientific research.” “One of the major problems with Biden’s executive order and other recent regulations, is that they’re too heavily focused on the training layer and hardware, rather than the application layer. Consider that today’s supercomputer is tomorrow’s pocket watch. And government regulation tends to lag behind the times, not keep ahead of it,” he said.

“Del Complex foresaw this inevitability and engineered The BlueSea Frontier Compute Cluster as a means of offering nation-state-as-a-service. This movement has been brewing for decades, and has been thoroughly articulated by Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State, and his recent conference on the topic,” Crispin continued.

What Next?

TechRadar concluded by capturing the actual U.N.-based international law that could be used to deploy a sovereign AI nation-state at sea:

Could Del Complex’s plan work?

Del Complex appears confident that the ‘statehood’ status of each data center aligns with international laws on sovereignty. The company said the status of each would be recognized through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Montevideo Convention. This is due to the fact that each would have a permanent population in the form of security forces and staff, a ‘defined territory’, a government, and the “capacity to enter into relations with other states”. “BSFCCs are each governed by their own charter, a document that outlines the rights and responsibilities of residents and visitors,” the company said. “Each charter is a living document, able to be amended by the operators of the BSFCC and their corporate partners.”

Tagged: Artificial Ingelligence

About the Author

Daniel Pereira

Daniel Pereira is research director at OODA. He is a foresight strategist, creative technologist, and an information communication technology (ICT) and digital media researcher with 20+ years of experience directing public/private partnerships and strategic innovation initiatives.

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The first AI nation?

A ship with 10,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs worth $500 million could become the first ever sovereign territory that relies entirely on artificial intelligence for its future

Could Del Complex’s plan work?

Daniel Pereira

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