Cerebras Systems Unveils World’s Largest Computer Chip for AI Workloads

A Californian-based start-up has unveiled what it says is the world's largest computer chip. The Wafer Scale Engine, designed by Cerebras Systems, is slightly bigger than a standard iPad. The firm says a single chip can drive complex artificial intelligence (AI) systems in everything from driverless cars to surveillance software. The silicon monster is almost 22 centimetres (roughly 9 inches) on each side, making it likely the largest computer chip ever, and a monument to the tech industry’s hopes for artificial intelligence. The chip has some 400,000 cores, 18 Gigabytes of memory and around 1.2 trillion transistors. To put that into context that is 78x more cores, 3,000x more memory and 57x more transistors than Nvidia’s most powerful AI chip. Cerebras plans to offer it to tech companies trying to build smarter AI more quickly. Although some have ridiculed its size many also believes that it makes sense, because of the intense computing power demanded by large scale AI projects such as virtual assistants and self-driving cars.