This Huge Computer Chip Could Lead to Big A.I. Advances

Tucked in the Los Altos hills near the Stanford University campus, in a low-slung bunker of offices across from a coffee shop, is a lab overflowing with blinking machines putting circuits through their paces to test for speed, the silicon equivalent of a tool and die shop. Most chips you can balance on the tip of your finger, measuring just a centimeter on a side. Something very different is emerging here. Andrew Feldman, 50, chief executive of startup Cerebras Systems, holds up both hands, bracing between them a shining slab the size of a large mouse pad, an exquisite array of interconnecting lines etched in silicon that shines a deep amber under the dull fluorescent lights. At eight and a half inches on each side, it is the biggest computer chip the world has ever seen.