Guest: Mark Collier (LinkedIn) 
Foundation: OpenInfra Foundation (Twitter)
Show: 2024 Prediction Series

The Open Infrastructure Foundation (OpenInfra Foundation) focuses on building communities that write software that runs in production, specifically for infrastructure. Probably the best-known project that they host is OpenStack but other projects include StarlingX and Kata Containers. The foundation is a non-profit and currently has around 100,000 members across 187 countries. Mark Collier, Chief Operating Officer at OpenInfra Foundation, shares his 2024 predictions.

AI models will become smaller and more efficient and we are starting to see different techniques for how to structure the LLMs so that they can run on smaller hardware, which will make AI models more accessible. It is also predicted that open source AI will surpass GPT-4 and GPT-5, which is not actually open. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is also working on a definition for what open source AI is although it does not fit as neatly as many would like into what we traditionally consider open source.

New ways to host these open source AI models are emerging, whether locally or via a server. We will see a lot of competition in this area, driving down the cost per token to process these things. AI hardware will also get more competitive, with the NVIDIA GPU just out and others following later this year. There will be significant improvements to the software that enables the hardware, such as in the case of NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture and software stack and AMD investing in PyTorch support.

While we have seen ChatGPT make it into the mainstream world, one of the next areas we might see AI make significant traction in is in the entertainment industry. This might be in the form of an AI-generated short film that is actually screened in theaters or just something silly that captures the imagination. Nonetheless, it will change how we think about how entertainment is produced.

Some of the key challenges we will likely encounter during 2024 are the pace of change where it is impossible to understand and follow every latest development. It will become even more challenging as systems continue to get more intelligent. For companies in particular, working on how to productize and incorporate these new technologies into the business will be challenging.

Another challenge is data and unlocking the power of it. With 90% of new data that is being generated and stored being unstructured, only 18% of enterprises and organizations are doing anything with it. OpenInfra Foundation has been working to build software that can manage this substantial growth of data so that it can be used in a meaningful way.

OpenInfra Foundation for the coming year are focusing on protecting their vision of open source and promoting it. They will also be adding new projects and focusing on helping those communities improve their software to meet the customer’s needs. They will also be looking at the overall impact of open infrastructure and strengthening the community around the world.

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.