National Lab Taps AI Machine With Massive Chip to Fight Coronavirus

The system's calling card is a massive chip, measuring 8.5 inches by 8.5 inches. Putting the neural network on the chip, instead of dispersing it across a system, enables problems to be solved faster. Data travels a shorter distance, speeding up the processing of information. "You've got a chip that's about 60 times bigger than any existing chip. That raw capability is what we're trying to exploit," said Rick Stevens, associate laboratory director for computing, environment and life sciences at Argonne. When the AI computer was installed in November, originally for cancer research, the lab determined its computing power was almost equivalent to that of a cluster of computers with up to 300 graphics chips, which are widely used for AI.