Opinion piece by Sander Arts (who is also marketing advisor to Edge AI company Axelera AI), dealing with the very issue disruptive technology companies are facing:
āIf adoption isnāt easy from an integration and software development perspective, or the risk is too high, most customers will go with the low-risk, proven optionā.
And Brainchip getting a mention, too.
Sean Hehirās presentation above shared by
@Getupthere IMO confirms once more that the Brainchip team has clearly identified this problem and changed course accordingly to make adoption of their groundbreaking tech easier for prospective customers.
Commercial success in AI isnāt merely about performance, explains Sander Arts.
bits-chips.nl
OPINION
AI isnāt all about speeds and feeds
Sander Arts worked for or with a variety of European and US tech companies. Currently, heās an independent investor and consultant.
16:34
Commercial success in AI isnāt merely about performance, explains Sander Arts.
A few years ago, I started to engage with AI and ML companies that created purpose-built architectures that pump out chips and IP that are 100, 200, and even 300 times faster than anything ever invented before. I was amazed! After all, Iād been used to a world where next-generation products bring incremental improvements ā never 100x. I even started to gravitate toward the type of marketing Iāve consciously tried to avoid throughout my career: the āspeeds-and-feedsā marketing thatās ubiquitous in the semiconductor industry. But in this case,
it seemed that anything so disruptive would sell itself.
As it turns out, it doesnāt. People will buy superior technology, of course, but superior technology alone isnāt what moves customers from established players like Nvidia to new up-and-comers with better technology.
Companies will embrace a ānew thingā thatās hundreds of times faster or lower power only if they have to and/or are forced to. If adoption isnāt easy from an integration and software development perspective, or the risk is too high, most customers will go with the low-risk, proven option. In other words, I believe customers will embrace a ātotal solution,ā especially for use cases or form factors they wonāt be able to achieve with todayās incumbents.
For example, companies like Axelera bring to market various form factors for quick customer onboarding.
Brainchip, Neuton.AI and previously Pilot.AI (now Syntiant) are evangelizing IP and software into the more traditional microprocessor suppliers and enable extremely efficient small-footprint, intelligent wearable or even implantable devices, which traditional offerings donāt support. Iām also seeing companies that design vertical solutions combining both hardware and software for a total solution, like Syntiant.
Several weeks ago, AI company Cerebras announced their large āwinā and Iām excited to see how they and their competitors will bring faster compute to the market. Thereās also more and more traction coming out of Groq with the recent news that the company is breaking performance records in Large Language Model inference. ChatGPT, new data models and more consumer services will force the world into deploying more compute, fast.
Demanding new developments require more and better compute thatās more efficient, faster and cheaper and has more functionalities (on the edge).
This compute requirement is fast overwhelming the cloud. As weāve seen with the recent announcements from Qualcomm and Meta, even generative AI needs a hybrid approach to scale as well as more efficient, āright-sizedā and specialized AI compute done on edge devices.
Whatever the trajectory, one thing is clear. The progress for AI is going to be enabled or blocked by AI-friendly compute that requires a much lower power envelope and is easy to acquire, integrate and deploy. Companies like Enfabrica have also looked at the problem. They believe the fabric is the computer and have built a solution thatās advanced, performant and efficient, connecting compute, memory and network.
Speeds and feeds will make a significant difference, but the onboarding of clients, the providerās reputation and easy-to-use software and tools will be determining factors. Turns out the world changed hard and fast, and it also didnāt: suppliers build new technology and products, the customers decide.
. It answered a lot of question to me. Thank you @Getupthere .
