News/AI Chips
China Bets on Humanoid Robots as U.S. Chip Restrictions Bite
The World AI Conference in Shanghai showcased China's advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly in the development of humanoid robots, as the country grapples with ongoing chip shortages due to U.S. export controls. Emphasis on humanoid robots over advanced chips: Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Ping'an argued that China does not need the most advanced chips to lead in AI development, suggesting that the country should focus on other areas of innovation: Zhang stated that believing advanced AI chips are the only path to AI leadership is equivalent to embracing defeat, urging the industry to abandon this viewpoint. The conference featured 18...
read Jul 10, 2024Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz Clash Over AI Chip Supplies Amid Gen AI Boom
The intense competition between Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz over AI chip supplies highlights the critical role of GPUs in the rapidly evolving generative AI landscape. While Andreessen Horowitz is amassing a stockpile of over 20,000 GPUs to support its portfolio companies, Sequoia believes the GPU shortage has peaked and that increased production will lead to excess capacity and wasted capital. Andreessen Horowitz's AI chip strategy: The venture capital firm is taking a proactive approach to secure access to GPUs, which are essential for training and running large AI models: Andreessen Horowitz has been aggressively pursuing AI startups, leading 19...
read Jul 9, 2024Aitomatic Wants To Use AI to Revolutionize The $500B Semiconductor Industry
Aitomatic's SemiKong AI model is set to revolutionize the semiconductor industry by bringing domain-specific AI capabilities to chipmaking processes, potentially reshaping the $500 billion industry in the coming years. Key Takeaways: SemiKong is the first open-source AI Large Language Model (LLM) designed specifically for the semiconductor industry, aiming to improve accuracy, relevance, and understanding of semiconductor processes: Developed by Aitomatic in collaboration with FPT Software and semiconductor industry experts from the AI Alliance, SemiKong outperforms generic LLMs on industry-specific tasks. The model's smaller version often surpasses larger general-purpose models in domain-specific applications, offering potential for accelerated innovation and reduced costs...
read Jul 8, 2024Applied Materials Unveils Chip Wiring Innovations To Keep Pace With Moore’s Law
The semiconductor industry is striving to keep pace with Moore's Law and enable more powerful, energy-efficient chips for AI computing. Applied Materials has unveiled crucial chip wiring innovations that will help address key challenges in this pursuit: Enabling 2nm node manufacturing and beyond: Applied Materials' new materials in chip wiring will enable the production of logic chips at the 2nm node, where circuits are just two billionths of a meter apart. These advancements will: Reduce wiring resistance by up to 25%, improving chip performance and power consumption Decrease chip capacitance by up to 3% through the use of innovative materials...
read Jul 6, 2024Neuromorphic AI Chips Poised to Change Edge Computing and Intelligent Devices
The rise of neuromorphic computing and ultra-efficient AI chips promises to revolutionize edge computing and intelligent devices by dramatically reducing the energy and computational requirements of AI. Mimicking the brain's efficiency: Neuromorphic processors, like Innatera's Spiking Neural Processor, are designed to emulate the way biological brains process information using artificial neurons that communicate through spikes, enabling complex AI tasks with a fraction of the energy used by traditional solutions. These brain-inspired architectures are particularly well-suited for edge computing applications in consumer devices and industrial IoT, such as always-on audio processing, real-time sensor fusion, and ultra-low power computer vision. Innatera's neuromorphic...
read Jul 5, 2024Softbank’s $10B AI Gambit: Betting Big on Chips, Energy, and the Future
Softbank, the Japanese conglomerate known for its aggressive bets on emerging technologies, is seeking to borrow $10 billion to fund AI-related projects, signaling a major push into the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Key focus areas: Softbank's AI investment strategy appears to be centered around two critical components of the AI ecosystem: Nvidia chips, which have become the de facto standard for AI training and inference, are a key target for Softbank's investments, as the company aims to capitalize on the growing demand for AI hardware. Energy startups are another area of focus, as the massive energy consumption of AI systems...
read Jul 3, 2024Chinese Underground Network Smuggles Banned Nvidia AI Chips Despite US Restrictions
Underground network smuggling Nvidia AI GPUs into China despite US export ban: An investigation has uncovered over 70 sellers who claim to receive dozens of advanced Nvidia chips each month and resell them in China, circumventing US efforts to restrict exports of these chips. The chips, including Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs, are brought into China by couriers from countries like Singapore that can legally obtain them, with one Chinese student reportedly paid about $100 per GPU to transport six A100s in November. Some resellers openly operate out of brick-and-mortar electronics shops in China, such as the Huaquiangbei market in...
read Jul 1, 2024Groq’s AI Chip Ignites Industry Buzz, Promising Unrivaled Efficiency and Performance
The buzz around AI chip startup Groq is reaching a fever pitch as the company gears up to showcase its groundbreaking technology at VentureBeat's Transform 2024 conference. With claims of delivering lightning-fast AI inference at a fraction of the power consumption of traditional GPUs, Groq is positioning itself as a formidable challenger to Nvidia's dominance in the AI hardware market. Groq's AI PU Inference Engine sparks industry excitement: CEO Jonathan Ross has been making waves with impressive demos of Groq's technology, which has caught the attention of industry experts and media outlets alike: Matt Shumer, CEO of HypeWriteAI and OthersideAI,...
read Jun 29, 2024Axelera AI Secures $68M to Challenge NVIDIA in Edge AI Chip Market
Axelera AI raises $68M in Europe's largest Series B round in the fabless semiconductor category to rival NVIDIA with its edge AI chips. Key details of Axelera's funding round: The Netherlands-based startup has secured $68 million in Series B funding, bringing its total capital raised to $120 million, to expand its AI processing unit (AIPU) solutions: The funding was led by major institutional investors including Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund, European Innovation Council Fund, Innovation Industries Strategic Partners Fund and Samsung Catalyst Fund. Axelera plans to use the capital to bring its existing AIPU solutions to new geographies and markets, while...
read Jun 29, 2024Multibeam Aims to One-Up Chip Manufacturing Industry with Groundbreaking E-Beam Lithography Platform
Multibeam launches the semiconductor industry's first Multicolumn E-Beam Lithography (MEBL) platform, marking a significant milestone in chip manufacturing productivity and innovation. Key Takeaways: Multibeam's MB platform revolutionizes e-beam lithography (EBL) with a novel multicolumn architecture, offering productivity advantages while maintaining high resolution and quality: The fully automated precision-patterning technology is designed for rapid prototyping, advanced packaging, high-mix production, and other applications. Throughput is over 100 times greater than conventional EBL systems, making it the highest productivity high-resolution maskless lithography system available. As a mask-less solution, the platform enables greater design flexibility, reduced costs, and faster time to market compared to...
read Jun 26, 2024Harvard Dropouts Raise $120M to Challenge Nvidia’s AI Chip Dominance with Etched
A team of Harvard dropouts has raised $120 million to challenge Nvidia's dominance in AI chips with their startup, Etched. Key takeaways: Etched is betting that as AI advances, most of the technology's computing needs will be met by customized, hard-wired chips called ASICs, which are more efficient than Nvidia's general-purpose GPUs: Etched's Sohu chip is designed specifically for "transformers," the core architecture behind AI models like ChatGPT, offering more than 10 times the speed of Nvidia's GPUs due to its simpler, single-use architecture. By specializing in transformers, Etched can dedicate more chip space to raw computing power and less...
read Jun 26, 2024Intel’s Optical Chiplet Promises AI Boost, Transforming Data Centers
Intel has developed a small chiplet that uses light instead of electricity to transmit data between processors, potentially improving the bandwidth and efficiency of data centers tasked with intense AI processing. The OCI chiplet was recently demonstrated by Intel at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference, integrated with one of its CPUs. By using laser light traveling through fiber optic connections, the chiplet enables processors to communicate over distances nearly 100 times longer than traditional copper cables, allowing for more flexible and distributed data center architectures. Addressing AI's computational demands: The OCI chiplet is designed to help data centers cope with...
read Jun 26, 2024Siemens Rethinks Chip Design with AI, Digital Twins, and Multiphysics Simulation in EDA Tools
Siemens, a leader in Electronic Design Automation (EDA), is bringing digital-twin multiphysics and AI into its Calibre and Solido EDA tools to address the challenges of designing complex chips in the AI revolution. Siemens' evolution as an EDA leader: Siemens has become a prominent player in the EDA industry through strategic investments and acquisitions, notably Mentor Graphics in 2017: Since the Mentor Graphics acquisition, Siemens has invested heavily in EDA R&D, introducing over two dozen new EDA tools. Siemens and Mentor Graphics have acquired more than 100 companies combined to build a premier EDA toolset, with Siemens EDA being the...
read Jun 25, 2024Nvidia’s AI Success Fails to Translate into Top 100 Brand Recognition
Despite Nvidia's recent rise to become the world's most valuable company, it failed to crack the top 100 in Interbrand's ranking of the most recognizable brands, pointing to the limited real-world impact of AI among consumers. Tech giants dominate brand rankings: Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, and other well-known tech companies secured top spots in the brand rankings, while Nvidia was notably absent from the top 100. The top 10 featured consumer-oriented brands like Amazon, Toyota, Coca-Cola, and Nike, indicating the importance of brand awareness among the general public. Even within the tech sector, brands like Cisco, IBM, Intel, HP, Panasonic,...
read Jun 24, 2024Chip Company Supermicro Surges Highlighting Crucial Role of Infra in AI Revolution
Supermicro emerges as a key player in the AI revolution, riding the wave of Nvidia's success and offering critical infrastructure solutions for data centers. Supermicro's financial surge: The company's revenue has skyrocketed, with a 200% increase over the previous year and analysts predicting a potential doubling of its top line in the next two years: Enterprises are rushing to acquire AI servers to support their growth and transformation, driving the market's expansion at a compound annual rate of 25% through 2029. Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, has chosen Supermicro and Dell to provide the servers for its ambitious superdupercomputer project,...
read Jun 24, 2024AI Fuels Semiconductor Innovation: Lam Capital’s Venture Competition Showcases Promising Startups
Lam Research's venture competition highlights the semiconductor industry's vibrant startup ecosystem, with AI emerging as a key enabler for overcoming complexity challenges and driving innovation in chip manufacturing. A closer look at Lam Capital's venture competition: Lam Research recently held its third Lam Capital Venture Competition at its Fremont, California headquarters, attracting a diverse range of startups in the semiconductor and semiconductor manufacturing equipment space: The event drew over 250 attendees, including investors, corporate VCs, and startups, providing a unique networking opportunity within the semiconductor industry. Out of more than 70 applicants, 10 startups were selected to pitch their ideas...
read Jun 24, 2024TSMC’s Revolutionary Chip Packaging Method Could Unlock New AI Possibilities
Key details: TSMC is working on a new advanced chip packaging approach that could significantly boost computing power to keep up with the AI boom: The world's largest chipmaker is collaborating with equipment and material suppliers on this innovative method, although it may take several years to commercialize. The new approach involves using rectangular substrates instead of the traditional round ones, allowing for more chips to be placed on each piece of substrate. This method could potentially unlock greater computing power and efficiency to meet the explosive demand from AI applications. Industry context and competitive landscape: TSMC is not alone...
read