AMD helping Tesla to build its own AI chip

[Ryujin2003]

So, Jim Keller left AMD after speculation that Zen processors were near complete. Either Jim Keller left on his own or AMD pushed him ahead on a new product is unknown. However, it does appear that AMD has teamed up with Tesla to assist them in building their own AI processors by expanding from the proprietary hardware AMD currently has.

Quote

The effort to build its own chip is in line with Tesla's push to be vertically integrated and decrease reliance on other companies.

But Tesla isn't completely going it alone in chip development, according to the source, and will build on top of AMD intellectual property.

...

On Wednesday Sanjay Jha, CEO of AMD spin-off and chip fabricator GlobalFoundries, said at the company's technology conference in Santa Clara, California, mentioned Tesla as an example of companies that were working with fabricators. GlobalFoundries, which fabricates chips, has a wafer supply agreement in place with AMD through 2020.

Apparently the requirements that Tesla has is a power efficient chip combined with a lot higher compute performance than the GPU's that Tesla had been using from Nvidia, at least up until the two companies split up after an accident.

Quote

Current Tesla vehicles use Nvidia graphics processing units as part of the Autopilot self-driving hardware. Previously Tesla used chips from Mobileye, but the two companies parted ways last year after an accident involving a Mobileye-powered Tesla. Earlier this year Intel acquired Mobileye for more than $15 billion.

Notably Tesla is not working with Intel, which has enjoyed a long working relationship with Alphabet's Waymo car group.

As a rule, GPUs from the likes of Nvidia, which are widely used today for various types of AI workloads, are capable of doing many things but aren't designed with just a few narrow computing jobs in mind, hence the custom chip development. Plus, Tesla would be less impacted by pricing dictated by Nvidia if it switches to in-house hardware.

The funny part is that Intel purchased Mobileye, but Intel is also working with Alphabet. Was the split truely related to lack of performance on Nvidia's part or because their technology was acquired by Intel to be used with a competitor? Otherwise, this looks like it could be a very big deal with AMD. They can be working with Keller, who apparently has 50 people working under him at Tesla, with a few possibly also being AMD veterans. If Tesla uses AMD proprietary hardware, then AMD will get licensing which could help them with funding, but also provide them a chance to create more energy efficient technologies. If the chip that Tesla is going for is compute based, would they be looking at Vega or would there possibly be some other "secret" GPU in development that Tesla would be wanting to get their hands on?

 

Vega hasn't really worked out, but Ryzen does seem to be pretty well priced for performance when compared to Intel. The competition against Nvidia hasn't been to stellar, but hopefully future iterations will get better.

 

It looks like the competition has already began for developing AI chips. Will AMD be successful being this late to the game?

Quote

Alphabet has already built two generations of an AI chip that can work as a GPU alternative. Microsoft is working on its own AI chip for the HoloLens. And Apple has incorporated an AI chip into its top-of-the-line iPhone X.

 

I think this could be very beneficial for AMD and possibly Radeon? I hope this would boost technological improvements for AMD's future hardware, but also provide Tesla with the support it needs to continue to try and reach their goals.

What do you guys think? Earth shattering, or a dull thud of insignificance?

 

Original source CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/20/tesla-building-an-ai-chip-for-its-cars-with-amd-globalfoundries.html

[NTDaws]

Whats testla

[HZapperz]

2 minutes ago, Being Delirious said:

Whats testla

BOI

[themctipers]

shove bega fe in there

 

heating and AI brought to you by ayymd 

[sazrocks]

3 minutes ago, Being Delirious said:

Whats testla

That's some rock you're living under.

[NTDaws]

Just now, sazrocks said:

That's some rock you're living under.

You clearly don't understand the text I wrote.

[Drak3]

37 minutes ago, Being Delirious said:

Whats testla

New form of steroid that causes testicle growth, for a change.

 

Pyo.

[DocSwag]

I'm just happy because amd stock jumped from this  

[7850OC]

1 hour ago, Being Delirious said:

Whats testla

its a car 

[NTDaws]

19 minutes ago, 7850OC said:

its a car 

Must be in testing

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I think this could be very beneficial for AMD and possibly Radeon?

The partnership is more with Radeon than it is with AMD, this is all GPU based tech.

 

3 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

The funny part is that Intel purchased Mobileye, but Intel is also working with Alphabet. Was the split truely related to lack of performance on Nvidia's part or because their technology was acquired by Intel to be used with a competitor? Otherwise, this looks like it could be a very big deal with AMD.

My feeling is it had more to do with PR/damage control where Tesla had to show they did something about the incident, investors and board members can be funny like that. I seriously doubt Nvidia was not able to deliver the performance they required no matter how 'unique' or 'different' their workloads were. However partnering with AMD will give them a lot more say over chip design and direct features that they want, something they wouldn't be able to dictate to Nvidia.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Being Delirious said:

Must be in testing

I see what you did there .

[Coaxialgamer]

Vega could be what they are looking for actually. Especially when not overvolted to the limits. Vega seems like an architecture that was designed for anything BUT gaming. Compute is its domain, its specialty. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Vega could be what they are looking for actually. Especially when not overvolted to the limits. Vega seems like an architecture that was designed for anything BUT gaming. Compute is its domain, its specialty. 

Suspect the INT8 and good FP16 perf could be useful for image processing and the machine learning, mind you I know jack about machine learning so...

[Carclis]

Wait, what happened between Nvidia and Tesla? Didn't they partner up just 6 months ago?

[Taf the Ghost]

2 hours ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Vega could be what they are looking for actually. Especially when not overvolted to the limits. Vega seems like an architecture that was designed for anything BUT gaming. Compute is its domain, its specialty. 

Automotive Electrical Tech is fairly different from Server/PC based Tech. So there's a good bit more going on here than would be easily figured out from outside. When it comes to Cars, you simply have a lot of other considerations. The GCN-line of GPUs are incredibly good Compute cards at low wattages, which is probably the main driving point. In an all-electric car, you are going to have a specific power budget for certain tasks. 

 

There's also the reality that AMD has a semi-custom line of processors & GPUs already, so they have an entire department dedicated to building out really specific hardware for this type of work already.

[Doobeedoo]

Transformers will be a thing. 

[Ryujin2003]

8 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

There's also the reality that AMD has a semi-custom line of processors & GPUs already, so they have an entire department dedicated to building out really specific hardware for this type of work already.

 

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

The partnership is more with Radeon than it is with AMD, this is all GPU based tech.

 

So, if AMD can't keep up with the current consumer demand, how will they be able to support Tesla? Yes, not do much required for one or two cars for development purposes, but if something goes into production, AMD would have to meet the demands before it's released. Not too good of say track record with Ryzen and Vega s far as that goes.

[Coaxialgamer]

18 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

 

So, if AMD can't keep up with the current consumer demand, how will they be able to support Tesla? Yes, not do much required for one or two cars for development purposes, but if something goes into production, AMD would have to meet the demands before it's released. Not too good of say track record with Ryzen and Vega s far as that goes.

Ryzen's supply has been excellent thus far, the main supply  issues have been with vega 10.

Tesla automobiles aren't extremely high volume either. They are high end vehicles after all. Amd could probably keep up with demand, especially if they get, say 10x the margin of equivalent consumer products. 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

33 minutes ago, Coaxialgamer said:

Ryzen's supply has been excellent thus far, the main supply  issues have been with vega 10.

Tesla automobiles aren't extremely high volume either. They are high end vehicles after all. Amd could probably keep up with demand, especially if they get, say 10x the margin of equivalent consumer products. 

 

Tesla should sell around 100k cars in 2017. For "consumer" electronics, that's a small amount. Over 6 million PS4s were sold in just the holiday season in 2016. Those use AMD's semi-custom hardware.

[Coaxialgamer]

10 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Tesla should sell around 100k cars in 2017. For "consumer" electronics, that's a small amount. Over 6 million PS4s were sold in just the holiday season in 2016. Those use AMD's semi-custom hardware.

Besides, Amd is having supply issues on their vega 10 gpu, which is actually understandable given the large die size and technology involved. A smaller chip based on the vega architecture should not see those issues. 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

So, if AMD can't keep up with the current consumer demand, how will they be able to support Tesla? Yes, not do much required for one or two cars for development purposes, but if something goes into production, AMD would have to meet the demands before it's released. Not too good of say track record with Ryzen and Vega s far as that goes.

Wouldn't be a big problem since it'll be a custom chip with a supply contract and a single buyer, miners and gamers won't be buying it and volume required likely won't be that big so shouldn't use up much fab capacity.

[Ryujin2003]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Wouldn't be a big problem since it'll be a custom chip with a supply contract and a single buyer, miners and gamers won't be buying it and volume required likely won't be that big so shouldn't use up much fab capacity.

I'd give you a thumbs up for the great point, but it doesn't exist anymore.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

I'd give you a thumbs up for the great point, but it doesn't exist anymore.

Yea only just noticed that now too, guess 'Like' replaced it.

[Ryujin2003]

19 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea only just noticed that now too, guess 'Like' replaced it.

Well... I'm not a hipster, and I'm a bit on the borderline of age as to not be a millenial.. so I feel very weird about "hearting" things.