By: Festus Ewakaa Kahunla In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), each breakthrough seems to bring us closer to a future once imagined only in science fiction. Yet, as we push the boundaries of what machines can learn, understand, and execute, a critical challenge looms large: the very infrastructure that enables these leaps in AI capabilities GPUs, specialized chips, and networking is becoming a bottleneck to further growth. This blog explores the intricate dance between AI's aspirations and its physical underpinnings, revealing a path that requires not just technological innovation, but a rethinking of collaboration and investment strategies. A burning data center The Crucible Innovation of GPUs and Specialized Chips The heart of AI's computational power lies in its hardware, with GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and specialized chips like TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) leading the charge. Originally designed for rendering images and video, G...

    By: Festus Ewakaa Kahunla Welcome back to 'The AI Corner', where we delve deep into the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Today, we uncover a silent champion In the radiant realm of artificial intelligence, where machines mimic human thought and intuition, there lies a quiet but powerful force: web scraping. Just as the River Rokel winds its way through Sierra Leone, nourishing the lands, web scraping meanders through the digital realm, providing the lifeblood for AI The Symphony of Data: Setting the Stage Picture the vibrant Salone festivals, with each musician playing a crucial role in bringing the performance to life. In AI's harmonious world, data forms the rhythm, and web scraping, often overlooked, is akin to the traditional balangi player, extracting essential notes needed for the AI dance. The Cotton Tree of AI: Web Scraping Much like Freetown's historic Cotton Tree stood tall and deep-rooted, web scraping forms the pillar of AI. It sifts...

  By: Festus Kahunla Hello to all our readers from Sierra Leone and beyond! Today, we'll embark on a journey to understand one of the foundational pillars of machine learning: Decision Trees. Let’s dive into this captivating topic with an analogy most of us can relate to. Setting the Scene: Decision-Making in Everyday Life Imagine you’re deciding what to wear today. You peek outside: if it's sunny, you choose a light shirt, but if it's raining, you opt for a raincoat. This type of logic, where you make decisions based on certain conditions, is the essence of Decision Trees in machine learning. What Exactly is a Decision Tree? A Sierra Leonean Tale Imagine you're at a crossroads, with two paths stretching out before you. One path is labeled “Sierra Leone” and is characterized by the familiar sights and sounds of home, filled with both its unique challenges and undeniable beauty. The other path is labeled “America”, paved with golden opportunities, yet also new ch...

By Festus Ewakaa Kahunla The world of Natural Language Processing (NLP) has been buzzing with the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) that boast billions of parameters. These models, while incredibly powerful, come with their own set of challenges, especially when it comes to deployment and fine-tuning. A recent paper titled "PETALS: Collaborative Inference and Fine-tuning of Large Models" offers a fresh perspective on this issue. Let's dive into the key takeaways from this paper. The Challenge with LLMs Modern LLMs, such as BLOOM-176B, have more than 100 billion parameters. While these models are now available for download, using them requires high-end hardware, which many researchers might not have access to. Techniques like RAM offloading or hosted APIs offer some respite, but they come with their own limitations. For instance, offloading can be slow, and APIs might not offer the flexibility needed for specific research tasks. Introducing PETALS PETALS, a sy...

  (serve robotics delivery bot on delivery) Imagine, if you will, the bustling streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The vibrant markets, the lively chatter, the aroma of freshly cooked street food filling the air. Now, picture a small, autonomous robot navigating its way through the crowd, carrying a delivery from your favorite restaurant. Sounds like a scene from a science fiction movie, right? Well, this is already a reality in Los Angeles, USA, thanks to a partnership between Uber Eats and Serve Robotics. The AI-Powered Delivery Revolution In LA, up to 2,000 of these AI-powered robots have been deployed to serve customers. Each robot is equipped with advanced AI models that allow it to understand its surroundings, navigate the city streets, and avoid obstacles. This technology is the result of years of research and development, and it's changing the game for food delivery services. The Robots in Action (Customer doing a pickup) Each robot can travel at a speed of up to seven...