Google's AI Can Design Computer Chips In Under 6 Hours

In a recent Google AI blog post, lead Jeff Dean, scientists at Google Research and the Google chip implementation and infrastructure team described an AI technology that can design computer chips in less than six hours. The team explained the process in a published paper where it talked about a learning-based approach to chip design that can learn from experience and improve over time, becoming better at generating architectures for unseen components. They claim that this technology can complete designing computer chips in under six hours on average, which is significantly faster than the weeks it takes human experts in the loop. According to the company, the new technology advances the state of the art in that it implies the placement of on-chip transistors can be largely automated. If made publicly available, the Google researchers' technique could enable cash-strapped startups to develop their chips for AI and other specialised purposes.