AI Compilers and the Race to the Bottom

Creating intelligence requires a lot of data. And all of that data needs technologies that can support it. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), these technologies include large amounts of direct-access, high-speed memory; parallel computing architectures that are capable of processing different parts of the same dataset simultaneously; and, somewhat surprisingly, lower-precision computing than many other applications. An almost endless supply of this technology mix is available in the data center. AI development tools were therefore designed for the data center infrastructure behind applications like internet queries, voice search, and online facial recognition.