South Korean startup Rebellions has launched a brand new AI chip known as Atom, Reuters reported on Monday. The brand new chip is an try by the startup to compete towards US chipmaker Nvidia, which presently dominates the AI chip market.
Rebellions goals to supply a domain-specific AI processor together with optimized software program. “This method, along with our distinctive decentralized programming mannequin, will allow clients to arm with probably the most highly effective but vitality environment friendly AI {hardware} in addition to seamless software program integration,” the corporate mentioned on its web site.
Rebellions is backed by considered one of South Korea’s largest telecom operators KT, who’s each an investor in addition to a potential buyer for Rebellions.
The Atom chip is “designed to excel at working pc imaginative and prescient and chatbot AI functions,” Rebellions co-founder and Chief Government Park Sunghyun advised Reuters. “As a result of it targets particular duties quite than doing a variety, the chip consumes solely about 20% of the ability of an Nvidia A100 chip on these duties,” he mentioned.
Analysts imagine Rebellions’ new chip may enhance South Korea’s capability to compete within the AI chip area, presently dominated by Nvidia.
“This Atom AI chip by Rebellions will give competitors to Nvidia AI chips. AI chips is the quickest rising phase in semiconductors. It’s good to have competitors on this house,” mentioned Pareekh Jain, CEO at Pareekh Consulting.
Thus, “It has a great shot in scaling up and changing into a competitor to Nvidia,” he mentioned.
The South Korean authorities has been making an attempt to strengthen analysis and improvement within the AI chip sector with the target of enhancing its presence within the home knowledge heart market. The federal government plans to allocate almost $800 million within the coming 5 years, and it’s anticipated that the demand for AI chips will account for one-third of the whole demand for chips by 2030.
AI chips are utilized in excessive compute intensive atmosphere reminiscent of cloud, conversational AI, generative AI reminiscent of ChatGPT, pc imaginative and prescient, robotics, metaverse, self-driving automobiles, quantum computing, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity, and funds.
Nevertheless, Jain mentioned one of many greatest challenges in adopting the brand new expertise is price. “The huge availability of cost-effective AI chips will assist in democratizing many of those new applied sciences,” Jain mentioned.
CIOs and CTOs throughout sectors want AI chips for compute-intensive workloads. Till now, the alternatives have been restricted, with Nvidia commanding a lion’s share of the market. If Rebellions is ready to scale up, it could actually current itself as a great various to Nvidia.
“Competitors is all the time good for sourcing. As we have now seen throughout the chip scarcity, enterprises felt the necessity to diversify each chip suppliers and geographical areas to keep away from provide chain dangers and delays,” Jain mentioned.
“Rebellions with the South Korean ecosystem is usually a good various each as a provider and likewise as a geographical area,” Jain mentioned. “And if Rebellions comes with engaging pricing and presents equal or higher efficiency than Nvidia, it could actually profit CIOs even on the price facet.”
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