OpenAI needed more compute power in 2017 to advance its Dota 2 AI project. Elon Musk personally called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to request additional discounted compute, which Nadella approved [1].
The extensive training for OpenAI Five used 256 GPUs and 128,000 CPU cores, running large numbers of self-play games [1]. OpenAI Five faced human players in three exhibition matches in 2018, winning the series overall [1].
Gabe Newell reportedly contributed over $20 million to OpenAI and served as the sole member of its informal advisory board in 2018 [1].
Professional Dota 2 player MoonMeander described OpenAI Five's gameplay: "There was one time when I was about to fissure kill a Lion and the courier came at the frame-perfect moment, delivered a salve, and it instantly used it. No way a human could have done that. No way." [1]
OpenAI Five's success demonstrated the effectiveness of massive compute resources combined with reinforcement learning through self-play. The team's next major events and competitions are yet to be scheduled.
