Introduction
The AI revolution might be the largest innovation in tech since the advent of the internet. Just as the internet had demanded more advanced hardware to support its use, so too does AI. Microchip manufacturers such as Nvidia and AMD have recently grown to be some of the largest companies in the world in market cap. New and more powerful chips designed around AI functionality are being pushed out at an extraordinary rate. But what are chips, how do they affect AI, and what impact might chip technology and AI have on the future? In this post we will be discussing the unprecedented advancement of chips and AI to educate and better prepare you for the future.
What are chips and what do they do?
Microchips or Integrated Circuits are just that; small electronic circuits etched into a semi-conductor. Before the advent of microchips, transistors, diodes, and vacuum tubes were used for the electrical function of most technology. These components are still crucial to the way electronic circuits work today, but the advent of the microchip condensed these components into a miniaturized single unit. Microchips improve reliability, reduce size and power consumption, and lower the overall cost of new tech. Popular chip manufacturers include Nvidia, AMD, Micron and many others.
Why are chips important for AI?
New and better microchips keep costs low, increase and optimize AI performance, and can be tailored to specific applications in the AI sphere. GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) are types of microchips that AI use to analyze and generate data sets. Deep learning and neural pathways allow AI to train on data and make inferences based on that training; these processes are incredibly complex and demanding on systems and wallets.
Aren’t current chips good enough?
Current chip technology is good enough for most of what you’ll be doing on a computer, but AI requires far more specialized and advanced chips to keep up with an expanding horizon of possibilities. Thanks to recent innovations microchips have been made so small that they are able to pass through the human blood stream providing scientists a never before seen look at how blood illnesses attack us and insight on how to combat it. Additionally, multiple AI mapping projects would be impossible, extremely costly, or too time consuming without improving chip designs. NVIDIA’s newest Blackwell chips will be massively scalable and up to 25 times cheaper than their predecessors. AMD have launched new Ryzen neural chips specially designed for AI neurology.
What impact can microchips and AI have on our lives?
Healthcare and navigation will be seriously impacted by improvements in integrated circuits. The ability to deploy tech into the human body might provide us answers for questions we’ve been trying to figure out for decades like how our minds work. Providing accurate navigation information allows people to get from point A to point B and avoid obstructions in real time, but also offers an opportunity to make travel safer. The more learning these systems do and the more power that we are able to fit into smaller, cheaper packages the more amazing the possibilities become.
Conclusion
As AI’s great wave draws nearer it’s important to understand the underlying hardware powering it. Chip manufacturers are becoming a household name like PC manufacturers before them and it’s becoming increasingly clear that they’re here to stay. Understanding what they do and how can remove some of the confusion around artificial intelligence and explain recent trends in the tech sector. We hope that this post serves as an introduction to the function and importance of microchips to AI and highly encourage readers to keep up with new information and chipsets as this fascinating history unfolds.
