Visualizing The Training Costs Of AI Models Over Time
Training advanced AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini Ultra requires millions of dollars, with costs escalating rapidly. As computational demands increase, the expenses for the computing power necessary to train them are soaring. In response, AI companies are rethinking how they train generative AI systems. In many cases, these include strategies to reduce computational costs given current growth trajectories. As Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld shows in the following graphic, based on analysis from Stanford University’s 2024 Artificial Intelligence Index Report, the training costs for advanced AI models has surged. How Training Cost is Determined The AI Index collaborated with research firm Epoch AI to estimate AI model training costs, which were based on cloud compute rental prices. Key factors that were analyzed include the model’s training duration, the hardware’s utilization rate, and the value of the training hardware. While many have speculated that training AI models has become increasingly costly, there is a lack of comprehensive data supporting these claims. The AI Index is one of the rare sources for these estimates. Ballooning Training Costs Below, we show the training cost of major AI models, adjusted for inflation, since 2017: Last year, OpenAI’s GPT-4 cost an estimated $78.4 million to train, a steep rise from Google’s PaLM (540B) model, […]