While the IBM hardware business today is limited to POWER and Mainframe chips and systems, the technology giant is quietly building its expertise and capabilities in AI hardware. Where this could end up is anybody's guess, but here are a few thoughts about what IBM is doing and speculation as to why. IBM founded the IBM Research AI Hardware Center in early 2019 to conduct AI Chip research in collaboration with the New York State, the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and technology companies including Mellanox, Samsung and Synopsys. The center takes a holistic, end-to-end approach to AI hardware, working towards its aggressive goal to deliver a 1000X increase in AI performance over the next 10 years. This starts with the reduced precision techniques we will discuss here.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to solve some of science and industry's most vexing challenges. But for that to happen, it needs a new generation of computer systems. Today, AI's ever increasing sophistication is pushing the boundaries of the industry's existing hardware systems as users find more ways to incorporate various sources of data from the edge, internet of things, and more. In the continued pursuit of more advanced hardware for the AI era, IBM is working across its Systems, Research and Watson divisions to take a fresh approach to AI, which requires significant changes in the fundamentals of systems and computing design. To help achieve AI's true potential, IBM, with support from New York State (NYS), SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and the founding partnership members, today announced an ambitious plan to create a global research hub to develop next-generation AI hardware and expand their joint research efforts in nanotechnology.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to solve some of science and industry's most vexing challenges. But for that to happen, it needs a new generation of computer systems. Today, AI's ever increasing sophistication is pushing the boundaries of the industry's existing hardware systems as users find more ways to incorporate various sources of data from the edge, internet of things, and more. In the continued pursuit of more advanced hardware for the AI era, IBM is working across its Systems, Research and Watson divisions to take a fresh approach to AI, which requires significant changes in the fundamentals of systems and computing design. To help achieve AI's true potential, IBM, with support from New York State (NYS), SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and the founding partnership members, today announced an ambitious plan to create a global research hub to develop next-generation AI hardware and expand their joint research efforts in nanotechnology.