As the costs and power consumption of building AI data centres grow, interest and investment are converging on new semiconductor technologies to replace existing GPUs.
Semafoor reported on Thursday that startup chipmaker Great Sky has unveiled a superconducting optoelectronic network (SOEN)-based chip. While GPUs transmit data using electrons, the chip uses light. Great Sky claims its chip processes images more than 1 million times faster than standard GPU-based models and uses less power.
Great Sky CEO Jeff Shainline said, "It costs only a fraction of existing costs, it means you do not have to build data centres next to nuclear power plants, it can be installed in existing data centres, and it can be operated with less power than a household."
Great Sky raised $13 million in funding led by San Francisco-based Bison Ventures. It plans to begin supplying the chip within this year.
Chi-gyu Hwang (황치규)
delight@d-today.co.kr