Microsoft Goes All in for FPGAs to Build Out AI Cloud

Microsoft has revealed that Altera FPGAs have been installed across every Azure cloud server, creating what the company is calling "the world's first AI supercomputer." The deployment spans 15 countries and represents an aggregate performance of more than one exa-op. The announcement was made by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and engineer Doug Burger during the opening keynote at the Ignite Conference in Atlanta. The FPGA build-out was the culmination of more than five years of work at Microsoft to find a way to accelerate machine learning and other throughput-demanding applications and services in its Azure cloud. The effort began in earnest in 2011, when the company launched Project Catapult, the R&D initiative to design an acceleration fabric for AI services and applications. The rationale was that CPU evolution, a la Moore's Law, was woefully inadequate in keeping up with the demands of these new hyperscale applications.