Chip with 256 Brains
An artificial intelligence chip (AI chip) that contains 256 electronic brains (cores) resembling the human brain in a semiconductor smaller than a fingernail will be domestically developed by 2020. Korean-made AI chips are expected to bring a big change to the semiconductor industry in the era of the fourth industrial revolution as they can make personal small information and communication devices such as smartphones and internet of things (IoT) devices as powerful as supercomputers.
According to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning on January 30, the government plans to make such ultra-fast, ultra low-light and ultra-light AI chips for four years from this year, and announce the project named “the development of intelligent many-core processers” as early as February. The government decided to invest 7 billion won for technology development and push ahead with the commercialization of development technology through the participation of private capital.
"We are studying measures to transfer technology to the private sector by having privately-owned companies take part in the project to secure technology for AI chip production until the third year of R&D and roll out commercial products beginning in the fourth year," said an official of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.
There are no AI chips that have been commercialized worldwide yet. IBM is developing AI chips after announcing a plan to develop them in 2014. Semiconductor giant Intel will release an AI chip with 68 cores under the brand name "Nirvana" by the end of this year at the earliest. Nirvana chips are mainly used for high power consumption devices such as data center servers so it is pointed out that the chips are not fit to be installed in small low-power portable devices such as smartphones.
This means that Korea will be able to become a strong player in the AI semiconductor market, which will grow explosively by developing ultra-low-power AI chips with 256 cores in Korea, commercializing them for use in mobile phones, smart clocks, and IoT household appliances.
In a recent symposium speech, Carry Pattern, chief technology officer of Global Foundry, an American semiconductor manufacturing company, predicted that the market for artificial intelligence-related semiconductors will reach US$ 50 billion by 2025. In April last year, Staratitics MRC analyzed that the world market of neuromorphic chips which belong to the category of AI chips, will swell by 23.8 percent annually to reach US$ 4.56 billion in 2022.