Artificial intelligence is the new trend in technology that is giving a lot to talk about. This new technology is generating many new jobs and moves hundreds of millions. No one wants to be left out, including Russiawho has spoken about his baikal processorthought-out for artificial intelligence.
First of all, you should know that artificial intelligence is characterized by requiring a lot of computational parallelization. The best component for this task is graphics cards, since the GPU is designed to perform many computing tasks in parallel. Processors are not that good for these kinds of tasks.
Because the AI sector moves a lot of money, everyone is looking to get their piece of the pie. Although NVIDIA is the undisputed current leader, everyone is looking to get into this sector by any means.
Russia has its own AI chip
We are seeing how all technology companies are getting into artificial intelligence. Arrives from Russia important news by the hand of the Baikal company. This Russian company has confirmed by the hand of Andrey Evdokimov, executive director of the company, that they work on solutions for AI.
During an interview with Evdokimov for CNews, he said:
A new division has been formed to develop a line of specialized chips for artificial intelligence, which will adopt currently existing architectural best practices. A key task for the team is to build a software ecosystem for the new processors.
Baikal does not intend to compete with NVIDIA in the GPU segment. They have the idea of developing a ASIC specialized in AIwith a investment of 2 billion rublesWhat are they about 20 million euros.
ASICs are gaining strength due to the increased interest in artificial intelligence. Additional computing capabilities specific to this task are being added to them. The problem is that They do not offer versatility. since they are developed for a specific application. An example would be the ASICs for Bitcoin, which could not be used for mining another cryptocurrency, since they were intended only for that algorithm.
We have to highlight that Baikal is a fairly young company and has no interest in competing with NVIDIA. They focus on solutions for the Russian market that cannot access NVIDIA solutions due to trade restrictions.
Also, they plan software development to have a strong ecosystem. They focus on their own solutions for the country. Baikal has not given much information about ASICs. This prevents us, for the moment, from getting an idea of what this company could offer.
War sanctions force Russia to innovate
We should point out that currently Russia this technologically isolated (among others) by the invasion of Ukraine. The United States and other countries have imposed sanctions, including the impossibility of selling technology of any kind. Something that forces the Russians to innovate and develop their own solutions, which are obviously inferior to any Intel or AMD solution.
Obviously, this solution from Baikal or any similar Russian company poses a problem for the main players. They are simply a solution to a need in the face of forced technological isolation.
