Opera announced that it will deploy a new artificial intelligence cluster in Iceland this month to power its future artificial intelligence services. You may have heard that generative AI is a power guzzler, and Opera decided to solve this problem by powering this AI cluster entirely with green energy.
The company says it hopes AI capabilities will be available throughout the browser in the future, rather than just limited to chatbot features. Therefore, it needs to be ready to provide these AI services to users now.
Commenting on the development, Krystian Zubel, Vice President of IT at Opera Group, said:
"Opera is the first browser to launch built-in AI services in spring 2023, delivering the generative AI assistant Aria for PC and mobile users. Aria is growing rapidly and we will continue to expand its capabilities to become a browsing companion for users. Iceland will complement our existing infrastructure around the world as a green, cost-effective, centralized hub for computing heavy tasks, ensuring Opera has the infrastructure to seize opportunities and enable our company to rapidly develop and expand AI services."
The new cluster is an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, using the latest NVIDIA H100 TensorCore GPU and NVIDIA AI enterprise software platform. Energy comes from hydroelectric and geothermal resources, while cooling is provided by the country's natural climate.
Like many other technology companies, Opera has been quick to add AI capabilities to its browsers, and its main AI service is Aria, a chatbot service built into its range of browsers.
Opera's forward-thinking approach stands in stark contrast to rival Vivaldi. Vivaldi announced a few days ago that it will not integrate large language models (LLMs) in the browser because it fears that LLMs can create hallucinations and consume a lot of power.