A lack of powerful chips is the primary bottleneck for AI: Viral Now
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The enormous demand for AI has also revealed the global supply chain’s constraints for strong chips needed to build and deploy AI models.
According to industry observers, the prolonged chip issue has hit enterprises large and small, including some of the AI industry’s major platforms, and is unlikely to lessen for at least a year or more.
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The most recent evidence of an ongoing shortage of AI chips was revealed in Microsoft’s annual report. The analysis mentions the accessibility of graphics processing units (GPUs) as a possible risk issue for investors for the first time.
GPUs are an essential piece of hardware that facilitates the execution of the countless calculations needed for developing and using AI systems.
Given the rising demand for AI services, Microsoft said in a statement that it was “continuing to identify and evaluate opportunities to expand our data center locations and increase our server capacity to meet the evolving needs of our customers.” The availability of computers, including graphics processing units (or “GPUs”) and other components, as well as networking supplies, stable energy, and buildable land are all requirements for our data centers.
Microsoft’s mention of GPUs highlights how a fundamental barrier to AI is computing power. Businesses who produce AI tools and products, as well as organizations and end users who anticipate using technology for their own purposes, are all instantly impacted by the issue.
From one bottleneck to another
According to Sid Sheth, founder and CEO of AI firm d-Matrix, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that GPU manufacturers themselves are running out of a crucial input from their own suppliers. GPUs cannot be created without the silicon interposer technology, which couples standalone processing devices with high-bandwidth memory chips.
The CHIPS Act, passed last year, is expected to give billions of dollars in support for the domestic chip industry as well as for chip research and development. The Biden administration has prioritized growing the US’s chip manufacturing capacity. However, such expenditures include a wide range of semiconductor technologies and are not exclusively meant to increase GPU manufacturing.
The chip shortage is expected to ease as more manufacturing comes online and as competitors to Nvidia also expand their offerings. But that could take as long as two to three years, some industry experts say.
In the meantime, the shortage could force companies to find creative ways around the problem. Companies that can’t get their hands on enough chips are now having to be more efficient, said Sheth.
“Necessity is the mother of invention, right?” Sheth said. “So now that people don’t have access to unlimited amounts of computing power, they are finding resourceful ways of using whatever they have in a much smarter way.”
Tags: Business
