The US Government’s $500 Billion Gamble On AI Cures for Aging

Highlights

• The Stargate Project, announced by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, plans to allocate $500 billion over the next four years to develop 10 to 20 large-scale AI data centers.
• With the Stargate Project-sponsored AI data centers, American entrepreneur Sam Altman predicts we will cure age-related diseases like heart disease and cancer at an unprecedented rate.
• Despite Sam Altman’s optimism, Tesla founder Elon Musk says Project Stargate doesn’t “actually have the money” to achieve its goals.

AI models analyzing medical scans for early signs of neurological conditions or cancer are already outperforming doctors. These AI-driven techniques for diagnostics as well as research, however, currently have computational limits, which curbs the scale at which AI can be used for diagnostics and research. To get around the current ceilings on AI-based research and diagnostics, the Stargate Project, announced by President Trump, aims to trounce these computational limitations and develop new treatments for age-related diseases.

If the Stargate Project goes as planned, AI may gain capabilities to analyze trillions of data points in seconds, leading to AI-designed organ replacements and aging intervention pharmaceuticals. As such, the Stargate Project may propel a new age in AI-driven aging intervention technology.

The Stargate Project Will Allocate $500 Billion to AI Data Centers Over Four Years

As presented in a Longevity Science News YouTube video, the Stargate Project aims to allot $500 billion to construct 10 to 20 large-scale AI data centers. These AI data centers will have the ability to process, analyze, and generate data by performing millions of complex parallel computations all at once. They will also have the capability to store information from analyzed data.

To process, analyze, and store all of this data, each data center will need ultra-high-speed fiber-optic networking and massive data storage capacity. As such, these centers will also need intense cooling systems to tamp down the heat generated from such high-scale information processing.

Not only that but to run, these data centers will need enough electricity to power the Las Vegas strip. Accordingly, these facilities will use approximately $1.5 billion of electricity a year, so for 10 to 20 of them, the cost of electricity alone would be about $15 billion to $30 billion annually. The high amounts of electricity consumption also mean that each of these data centers will need its own electricity-generating source. Altogether, this means funding and coordinating the infrastructure behind these AI data centers will be a gargantuan endeavor.

This is why Elon Musk may have been justified when he said those backing the Stargate Project, like the companies OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, do not have the money. Nonetheless, even if the Stargate Project is underfunded, its attempt to lay the groundwork for a massive AI infrastructure could make a health and medicine renaissance possible, potentially leading to groundbreaking aging interventions.

“I believe that as this technology progresses, we will see diseases get cured at an unprecedented rate,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at a press conference with President Trump.

People Behind Project Stargate Have a History of Commitment to Longevity

The people behind the Stargate Project, such as Sam Altman, have a history of commitment to health and longevity, which may mean that Project Stargate-sponsored AI research will develop ways to slow aging. Along those lines, in 2023, Sam Altman invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences—a company focused on adding 10 healthy years to the human lifespan. Moreover, Sam Altman takes metformin to help him fight off aging, supporting the notion that he is a longevity enthusiast. Furthermore, another Project Stargate co-founder, Larry Ellison, has consistently been a pioneer in the field of longevity research, which may give hope that Project Stargate will develop AI for aging intervention technologies.

Project Stargate Aims to Accelerate Medical and Longevity Advancements

As for Project Stargate’s potential for medical and aging intervention breakthroughs, its massive level of computations will be designed to accelerate such advancements. These AI-driven advancements, trained on vastly larger datasets with Stargate’s infrastructure, will help refine the accuracy of diagnostic and treatment techniques. Such enhanced techniques will be intended to dramatically speed up disease detection and substantially improve upon currently available treatment options for age-related diseases.

Furthermore, AI-powered genetic analyses will allow personalized treatments based on your unique physiology. Based on such genetic analyses, customized aging intervention therapies could be developed, specifically tailored to each individual. Moreover, AI-designed organ replacements may come from Project Stargate, which could come from the bioprinting of new tissues and organs and alleviate any organ shortages faced by prospective transplant recipients.

Waiting for the First Aging Intervention Breakthrough from AI

The computational power of the proposed Stargate Project could trigger an onslaught of cures for age-related diseases as well as new, individually tailored aging interventions. Whether Stargate gets the massive funding it will need to get up and running remains to be seen. If Elon Musk is correct, it may be the case that the founders of Project Stargate do not have enough money.

Nonetheless, the future of AI-driven breakthrough medical and aging interventions may be in the works within the next decade, especially if Project Stargate comes to fruition. Even if Project Stargate does not get 10 to 20 data centers functional within the next four years, only a few of these Stargate-sponsored data centers could have a significant impact on medicine with AI research advancements. Accordingly, it will be interesting to see when the first breakthrough aging intervention pharmaceutical or treatment technique comes from AI-driven research.