Nvidia's H100 GPU Surpassed By China's New AI Chip That Operates Entirely On Light In Energy Efficiency

A team of scientists from Beijing has unveiled the world’s first fully optical artificial intelligence chip, surpassing the energy efficiency of NVIDIA Corp.‘s NVDA H100 GPU.

What Happened: The Taichi-II chip, developed by a team from Tsinghua University led by Professors Fang Lu and Dai Qionghai, was introduced in a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, reported the South China Morning Post.

This chip, a significant upgrade from the earlier Taichi chip, operates entirely on light, eliminating the need for electronic computers. The team claims that this innovation has led to a substantial increase in efficiency and performance.

The Taichi-II chip’s performance was found to be superior to its predecessor in various scenarios, including a 40% increase in the accuracy of classification tasks and a six-order-of-magnitude improvement in energy efficiency in low-light environments.

Lu explained that the team overcame the challenges of conventional optical AI methods by developing a method where a computer-intensive training process is conducted directly on the optical chip, enabling most of the machine learning to be carried out in parallel.

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Why It Matters: This breakthrough comes at a crucial time for China, which has been striving for self-reliance in advanced chip manufacturing amid U.S. efforts to restrict its access to cutting-edge technologies. In May, the Chinese government announced a $47.5 billion public fund aimed at boosting its chip industry.

Despite U.S. trade restrictions, China’s chip sector has been poised for explosive growth in the next three to five years, according to industry leaders.

On the other hand, this breakthrough also comes at a time when Nvidia’s high-tech AI chips are reportedly reaching Chinese President Xi Jinping‘s military, potentially aiding China’s technological progress.

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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote