I.T. News – November 25, 2024

1 - Huawei’s AI chips fill Nvidia-sized hole in medical research in Hong Kong

Xinmei Shen, SCMP. 22 Nov 2024

A Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence (AI) research centre under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the mainland’s national research institute, said that it has advanced its medical AI models with the help of Huawei Technologies’ Ascend processors, as China’s scientific research community adapts to US sanctions that have restricted access to high-end Nvidia chips.

The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), which the CAS established in Hong Kong in 2019, on Friday launched its new AI model Cares Copilot 2.0, which is designed to assist surgeons in tasks including surgical planning, generating diagnostic reports and retrieving similar case files.

The new model, an upgrade from its previous version launched in March, was trained with Huawei’s Ascend 910B AI chip, which the company has boasted as being “close to the Nvidia A100 in performance”. The Huawei chips can “basically satisfy” the lab’s research needs, CAIR executive director Liu Hongbin told the Post in an interview on Friday.

Cares Copilot 2.0, based on Meta Platforms’ Llama 2 open source large language model (LLM) and trained with Huawei’s Atlas 800T A2 server, has been used by hospitals including the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and the Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong, Liu said on Friday.

CAIR’s progress reflects how Huawei has filled a void left by Nvidia, whose most advanced chips cannot be shipped to China because of Washington’s export restrictions. Huawei’s chips have become a top choice for Chinese research institutions and businesses.

Huawei, which rarely speaks publicly about its efforts to compensate for the limitations imposed by US sanctions, boasted in June about its Ascend 910B AI chip being able to match certain performance benchmarks of Nvidia’s A100.

However, it was recently discovered that not all the technology in the Ascend 910B is home-grown. Semiconductors from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation were recently found in a teardown of the 910B, raising scrutiny from Washington and resulting in the chipmaker cutting off Chinese clients from its advanced manufacturing processes.

Huawei’s Ascend solutions have been used to train roughly half of more than 70 of China’s top LLMs as of last year, according to Huawei.

While computing power provided by Huawei can support the needs of CAIR’s medical-focused AI model, Nvidia still leads in terms of ecosystem, Liu said.

“If I am just aiming to achieve functionality, I think domestically produced [chips] can meet the requirements,” he said.

2 - TSMC’s move to cut off Chinese chip firms weighs on annual Beijing semiconductor forum

At the 21st China International Semiconductor Expo, industry experts weighed in on the challenges and opportunities ahead in domestic chipmaking

Che-Pan. SCMP. Nov 20, 2024.

Chinese chip industry experts and investors have congregated in Beijing for one of the largest annual chip forums to discuss the impact of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) cutting advanced foundry services for some mainland clients and the outlook for the country’s chip sector under a new Donald Trump administration in the US.

Despite US threats of more sanctions, China should be bullish about developments in advanced semiconductors and generative artificial intelligence (AI) because of the potential of its huge market, according to industry insiders attending the 21st China International Semiconductor Expo.

The conference, which kicked off on Monday, gathered more than 500 firms from China’s semiconductor supply chain spanning design, foundry services and packaging in Beijing. Leading Chinese semiconductor equipment tool firms Naura Technology Group, 3D NAND flash memory chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation, DRAM chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies, and chip designer

Episode 3382 - November 26 - Tiếng Anh - Công nghệ Thông tin – Ngày 25 tháng 11, 2024 - Vina Technology at AI time

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Episode 3382 - November 26 - Tiếng Anh - Công nghệ Thông tin – Ngày 25 tháng 11, 2024 - Vina Technology at AI time