Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
1–10 of 34 posts
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#2Curious to hear what exactly the devices do? Article hints at compression and such, and the fact that they've moved devices to the edge of the machine to handle network connectivity makes me think it's a shift for better interaction with SDN more than anything else. I don't get how it has much to do with AI though?
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#3Curious to hear what exactly the devices do? Article hints at compression and such, and the fact that they've moved devices to the edge of the machine to handle network connectivity makes me think it's a shift for better interaction with SDN more than anything else. I don't get how it has much to do with AI though?
Anything they want. I think it's like having a blank breadboard circuit, Microsoft can mock up a new purpose designed chip and program it in to these FPGAs instead of having to fab one up from scratch.
It's hard to tell from the article though, I'm just guessing.
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#4Curious to hear what exactly the devices do? Article hints at compression and such, and the fact that they've moved devices to the edge of the machine to handle network connectivity makes me think it's a shift for better interaction with SDN more than anything else. I don't get how it has much to do with AI though?
FTA
> ... in the coming weeks, they will drive new search algorithms based on deep neural networks—artificial intelligence modeled on the structure of the human brain—executing this AI several orders of magnitude faster than ordinary chips could.
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#5It's a little odd saying that Microsoft is betting its future on reprogramable chips.. From reading the article they are just simply now using FPGAs where previously they (along with many other companies) were not. It would be like saying Amazon is betting its future on UPS trucks.. What you put in the FPGA matters.. The reprogramability is really just to allow them to implement algorithms that they use heavily that currently are not executed efficiently using current Intel chips. Basically what this is showing us is that the pace of development in software and algorithms that power the cloud is pretty fast so they need the ability to improve performance on data and computation flows that currently (and maybe in the future) will not be well supported on current silicon. FPGAs are not very cost efficient, so unlikely they would not buy that many compared to the number of Intel processors and nvidia gpus. They basically fill in gaps that currently are not being well supported. Intel now owns Alterra so this internal thrust at MSFT may be why they bought them..
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#6Curious to hear what exactly the devices do? Article hints at compression and such, and the fact that they've moved devices to the edge of the machine to handle network connectivity makes me think it's a shift for better interaction with SDN more than anything else. I don't get how it has much to do with AI though?
FTA > ... in the coming weeks, they will drive new search algorithms based on deep neural networks—artificial intelligence modeled on the structure of the human brain—executing this AI several orders of magnitude faster than ordinary chips could.
That raises as many questions as it answers. Why FPGAs and not GPUs which can run just about any deep neural network but usually faster and more efficiently?
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#7Brief summary: Microsoft is now using FPGAs (flexible hardware that can be 'programmed' to implemebt various chips) as part of its Cloud tech stack. The FPGAs can run their algorithms with better speed and energy efficiency than CPUs, but are less flexible (a pain to alter). The article does not explain it very well, I think MS itself lays it out quite clearly: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-cat...
Also annoyingly this article does not link to the paper about this, which also explains it better than the article. I recall this one from MS about how they use the FPGAs in Bing; was pretty impressed by it at the time. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/a-recon...
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#8It's a little odd saying that Microsoft is betting its future on reprogramable chips.. From reading the article they are just simply now using FPGAs where previously they (along with many other companies) were not. It would be like saying Amazon is betting its future on UPS trucks.. What you put in the FPGA matters.. The reprogramability is really just to allow them to implement algorithms that they use heavily that…
>Intel now owns Alterra so this internal thrust at MSFT may be why they bought them.
Intel openly acknowledges it. From the article:
"Microsoft’s services are so large, and they use so many FPGAs, that they’re shifting the worldwide chip market. The FPGAs come from a company called Altera, and Intel vice president Diane Bryant tells me that Microsoft is why Intel acquired Altera last summer—a deal worth $16.7 billion, the largest acquisition in the history of the largest chipmaker on Earth. By 2020, she says, a third of all servers inside all the major cloud computing companies will include FPGAs."
Altera strikes me as an odd choice though. I'd have thought Intel would buy out Xilinx, the industry leader, instead.
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#9It's a little odd saying that Microsoft is betting its future on reprogramable chips.. From reading the article they are just simply now using FPGAs where previously they (along with many other companies) were not. It would be like saying Amazon is betting its future on UPS trucks.. What you put in the FPGA matters.. The reprogramability is really just to allow them to implement algorithms that they use heavily that…
> Intel now owns Alterra so this internal thrust at MSFT may be why they bought them. Intel openly acknowledges it. From the article: " Microsoft’s services are so large, and they use so many FPGAs, that they’re shifting the worldwide chip market. The FPGAs come from a company called Altera, and Intel vice president Diane Bryant tells me that Microsoft is why Intel acquired Altera last summer—a deal worth $16.7 billi…
They're similar in capabilities, Altera's tooling is easier-to-use per comments I see, and it's much cheaper buy. Funny thing was that, when Intel was buying Altera, people were suggesting Xilinx should buy AMD. That's how funny the financial situation is between top CPU and FPGA vendors. Haha.
Re: Microsoft Bets Its Future on a Reprogrammable Computer Chip
#10I'm surprised some cloud vendor hasn't acquired eASIC yet. They throw together stuff easily whose price/performance is between FPGA's and standard ASIC's. Have a bunch of machines for rapid, chip prototyping from FPGA's to their S-ASIC's at 90nm, 45nm, and 28nm. Any IP for networking, storage, security, whatever could be turned into a chip easily.
Vendor could pull a IBM or SGI with little boards with high-end CPU's + FPGA's or S-ASIC's for various coprocessors. Not sure if it's ultimately best idea but surprised I haven't seen anyone try it. Wait, just looked up their press releases and it seems they're doing something through OpenPOWER:
http://www.easic.com/easic-joins-the-openpower-foundation-to...