Huawei released two AI chips, saying that it does not compete directly with Nvidia
The annual Huawei HC Conference is coming again. According to Netease Technology, the number of participants in the Huawei HC conference was more than 20,000, occupying two venues and simultaneous interpretation in seven languages. The HC conference focused on artificial intelligence technology with the theme of “+Intelligence sees the future”.
Huawei’s vice chairman and rotating chairman Xu Zhijun revealed Huawei’s full stack panorama solution for the first time at the conference. At the same time, the "Da Vinci Project" was first exposed, as well as two AI chips based on the "Da Vinci Architecture".
First artificial intelligence strategy: full stack panoramic AI solution
Xu Zhijun said that AI has experienced two development peaks since 1956. If two development trajectories are put together, artificial intelligence is closely related to the development of ICT industry.
It believes that artificial intelligence is a new general purpose technology, and it is hoped to pay attention to the great value and impact of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can not only solve the solved problems efficiently, but also solve the unsolved problems. And this is the key to building a future lead and competitiveness.
"Artificial intelligence can not only replace people, but also reduce production costs. This is where artificial intelligence is valuable. Artificial intelligence can involve and change all industries." Xu Zhijun said.
For example, artificial intelligence will subvert the following industry transportation, medical, multi-language translation, and reduce operation and maintenance based on AI telecommunications network, and smart cars will subvert the entire traditional automobile industry.
At this time, Xu Zhijun believes that the changes brought about by artificial intelligence have just begun. Now artificial intelligence belongs to the stage of collision between technological development and social environment. People's reaction to AI is full of excitement, impulsivity, anxiety and confusion. "Artificial intelligence is not a panacea. Any technology is not omnipotent. It fully focuses on the problems that artificial intelligence can solve. Choosing the right problem is more important than choosing a novelty."
Xu Zhijun proposed an important change direction of 10 human intelligence: model training, computing power, AI deployment, algorithm, AI automation, practical application, model update, multi-technology collaboration, platform support, talent acquisition. These ten changes are not all of artificial intelligence, but basic.
Based on these ten changes, Huawei has developed an artificial intelligence development strategy: investing in basic research, building a full-stack solution, investing in an open ecosystem and talent cultivation, enhancing solutions, and improving internal efficiency.
As early as this year (2018) April analyst meeting, Huawei announced the artificial intelligence full-stack full scene artificial intelligence solution. This time, Xu Zhijun officially released its plan.
Huawei's full-stack solution has four major directions: 1) Serialized AI IP and chip based on a unified and scalable architecture: Ascend. Including five series of Max, Mini, Lite, Tiny and Nano; 2) Huawei's full stack full scene AI solution also includes chip operator library and highly automated operator development tools, CANN; 3) and support side, edge, cloud MindSpore for independent and collaborative unified training and reasoning frameworks; 4) and application enablement for providing full process services (ModelArts), layered APIs and pre-integrated solutions.
First AI chip rise-up series: no direct competition with chip manufacturers
"The outside world has been circulating Huawei to be an AI chip. Today I want to tell everyone that this is a fact." Xu Zhijun bluntly said.
Today, Huawei released the Ascend 910 (Ascend 910), which has released the world's largest single-chip AI chip with the highest density, and the Ascend 310. It is currently the most powerful AI SoC for computing scenarios.
The rising series AI chips are based on the "Da Vinci Architecture".
Xu Zhijun said that the Shengteng 910 belongs to the Max series and is the single chip with the highest calculation density among all the chips currently released. The chip adopts a 7nm process and has a maximum power consumption of 350W.
"The Shengteng 910 can reach 256 T, which is the largest AI chip with the largest number of single chips released in the world, which is twice as high as the V100 of the NVIDIA." Xu Zhijun said.
The chip will be available in the second quarter of 2019.
Xu Zhijun said in an interview with NetEase and other media that Huawei's two AI chips will not be sold separately, but will be sold to third parties in the form of AI acceleration modules, AI servers, and cloud services.
For the competition that may arise with other chip companies, Xu Zhijun bluntly said: What is the market? The market needs competition, and there is no market without competition.
"Participants in the market are also welcome to compete. As for whether Huawei can win competition in the market, it depends on how Huawei has done it." Xu Zhijun said, "And, we don't provide chips directly to third parties, but provide chips based. Hardware and cloud services, we have no direct competition with pure chip vendors."
Huawei released two AI chips, saying that it does not compete directly with Nvidia.
First exposure "Da Vinci Project": Why not use Cambrian?
In addition, Xu Zhijun also clarified for the first time the "Da Vinci Plan" that has been rumored by the outside world.
Previously, the media wrote that Huawei had a "Da Vinci Plan", which was the most important plan in the past decade and the project that Xu Zhijun was responsible for. This time, Xu Zhijun made a clarification. He said that there is indeed a "Da Vinci project" but there is no "Da Vinci plan". In addition, the information transmitted by other information is not true.
Xu Zhijun said that he would care about each project, and the Da Vinci project is one of them.
"Why should we build a new architecture to support artificial intelligence chips? This is because Huawei is based on the understanding of artificial intelligence, and the demand for artificial intelligence is naturally generated based on the end-pipe cloud." Xu Zhijun said, "The Cambrian is also very good. But can't support our full scene."
It said that Huawei needs to cover the cloud, the edge, and the end to the Internet of Things, requiring a new architecture and a creative architecture.
“Now, we have found this architecture. Our groundbreaking DaVinci architecture meets the ultimate computing power and extreme power requirements. At present, we have not seen any architecture in the market to achieve full coverage.” Xu Zhijun Said.
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