AI Supercomputer Names Are Getting Scarier, And It's Deliberate
The origins and explanations behind some of the wildest names AI leaders have given their increasingly powerful data centers and supercomputers.
I’m still kind of excited about A24’s Eddington director Ari Aster mining the real AI space for the name of his fictional data center in the film. That reminded me of an idea I had: to assemble the most dramatic AI project names I’ve heard in recent months and years. AI leaders love a bit of science fiction flair, and if not a techie name of legend, they often lean toward the world of sword and sorcery.
Below, I’ve collected a handful of my favorites.
Stargate: From OpenAI, in collaboration with Microsoft, Oracle, and Japan’s SoftBank. This is the most ambitious and dramatic name of the lot. For sci-fi fans, it immediately calls back to the 1994 Stargate film directed by Roland Emmerich, which depicts a series of wormhole gates situated around the universe, allowing for instant travel and contact with new worlds. The film was so popular it gave birth to the popular television series Stargate SG-1 and several spin-offs.
Colossus: Launched by Elon Musk via his xAI business, this is my personal favorite because it references one of my favorite films about AI, Colossus: The Forbin Project, a 1970 film directed by Joseph Sargent. The film takes us through a story in which a supercomputer is developed and soon collaborates with another supercomputer on the other side of the planet, and the two take over the planet. Musk, one of the tech cognoscenti who has expressed concern about the dangers around AI, directly referenced the film in 2017, back when Twitter was still Twitter.
Hyperion: This is an inspired name for one of the data centers launched by Meta. It’s likely a reference to the influential science fiction novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons. The book details a vast galaxy inhabited by humans who interact with a species of artificial intelligence beings called the TechnoCore. Hyperion was also a Titan from Greek mythology, often referred to as “the watcher from above.”
Prometheus: Also a Meta project, like Hyperion, Prometheus was a Titan from Greek mythology who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. But in contemporary terms, most will know Prometheus as the name of the Alien movie prequel that prominently featured an AI-directed android called David 8, played by actor Michael Fassbender.
Jupiter: The name of the fifth planet in our solar system and the ancient god of the sky in Roman mythology. In AI terms, the Jupiter supercomputer (an acronym for the Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research) is owned by the European Union and operated by the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). In the realm of science fiction, Jupiter is the focus of the 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke. In the same year, director Stanley Kubrick released a film based on the story, in collaboration with Clarke.
Groot: There isn’t much detail on how Google chose the name for its Memphis, Tennessee, data center, but let’s be honest, right now there’s only one Groot, and that’s the one from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s cute, short, and fairly brandable. Not necessarily “epic” like the prior names, but a notable and very cuddly wrapper around a potentially consequential AI project.
Project Excalibur: Finally, a bit of medieval mysticism from the world of King Arthur’s court. Quality Technology Services (QTS), which was acquired by Blackstone in 2021 for $10 billion, is working to build its Excalibur data center in Fayetteville, Georgia, and it’s slated for completion in 2032. In Arthurian mythology, Excalibur was an unbreakable sword that guaranteed victory in battle and could even shine with blinding light. Young King Arthur wielded it. So, an AI data center with a divine weapon’s name is…well, you can draw your own conclusions.
Project ZEUS: This one is easy. Most people are familiar with Zeus as the king of the Greek gods among the Olympians. He even appeared in Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), where Russell Crowe comically portrayed him as a powerful slouch. The company behind the data center, which will be based in Osaka, Japan, is called SC Zeus.
This dramatic nomenclature habit in AI is both fun and a little scary. Especially, if you believe the warnings of Nobel Prize winner and “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton. But hey, if superintelligence is coming for humanity’s throne, we can at least enjoy the ride with a bit of fictional whimsy spice to make the singularity medicine go down easier.