NextSilicon’s Maverick-2 locks onto bottleneck code

• NextSilicon has developed a novel chip that adapts its hardware to accelerate high-performance computing applications.
• The Maverick-2 is claimed to have up to 4x the processing performance per watt of graphics processing units (GPUs) and 20x that of high-performance general processors (CPUs).

After years of work, the start-up NextSilicon has detailed its Maverick-2, what it claims is a new class of accelerator chip.

Brandon Draeger

A key complement to the chip is NextSilicon’s software, which parses the high-performance computing application before mapping it onto the Maverick-2. 

“CPUs and GPUs treat all the code equally,” says Brandon Draeger, vice president of marketing at NextSilicon. “Our approach looks at the most important, critical part of the high-performance computing application and we focus on accelerating that.”

With the unveiling of the Maverick-2 NextSilicon has exited its secrecy period.

Founded in 2017, the start-up has raised $303 million in funding and has 300 staff.  The company is opening two design centres—in Serbia and Switzerland—with a third planned for India. The bulk of the company’s staff is located in Israel.

Click to read more ...

OFC 2023 show preview

• Sunday, March 5 marks the start of the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) conference in San Diego, California
• The three General Chairs - Ramon Casellas, Chris Cole, and Ming-Jun Li - discuss the upcoming conference

OFC 2023 will be a show of multiple themes. That, at least, is the view of the team overseeing and coordinating this year's conference and exhibition.

General Chair Ming-Jun Li of Corning who is also the recipient of the 2023 John Tyndall Award (see profiles, bottom), begins by highlighting the 1,000 paper submissions, suggesting that OFC has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Ramon Casellas, another General Chair, highlights this year's emphasis on the social aspects of technology. "We are trying not to forget what we are doing and why we are doing it," he says.

Click to read more ...

Using an open-source model to spur AI adoption

The Linux Foundation’s (LF) Deep Learning Foundation has set itself the ambitious goal of providing companies with all the necessary artificial intelligence (AI) software they will need.

Eyal Felstaine“Everything AI, we want you to take from open source,” says Eyal Felstaine, a member of the LF Deep Learning governing board and also the CTO of Amdocs. “We intend to have the entire [software] stack.”

The Deep Learning Foundation is attracting telecom, large-scale data centre operators and other players. Orange, Ciena, Red Hat, Chinese ride-sharing firm, Didi, and Intel are the latest companies to join the initiative. 

The Deep Learning Foundation’s first project is Acumos, a platform for developers to build, share and deploy AI applications. Two further projects have since been added: Angel and Elastic Deep Learning. 

Click to read more ...