At Huawei Connect 2019, Huawei announced the introduction of Atlas 900, a new training cluster for artificial intelligence. Huawei reports that the AI application should make AI more widely available to a wide range of disciplines, including astronomy and self-propelled vehicles.
At Huawei Connect, Ken Hu, deputy chairman at Huawei, explained the new product: “The future of computing is a huge market worth more than two trillion dollars. We continue to invest with a strategy that focuses on four key areas. We will push the boundaries of architecture, invest in processors for all scenarios, maintain clear business boundaries and build an open ecosystem.” These four focus areas should make artificial intelligence more readily available to business.
According to the company, the AI industry is evolving from rule-based models to statistical models, which form the basis for machine learning. Huawei estimates that statistical computing will become mainstream over the next five years. AI computing will then account for more than 80 percent of all the computing power used in the world. Atlas 900 combines several thousand Ascend processors. One of the features is that ResNet-50 can be trained in 59.8 seconds. According to Huawei, this is 10 seconds faster than the previous world record.
Multiple deployment options
The new AI-cluster can be used for different fields in science and business innovation. In addition to astronomy and autonomous driving, according to Huawei, weather forecasts and oil exploration are also potential applications. The company also makes Atlas 900 available from the Huawei Cloud as a service for AI clusters. Zheng Yelai, chairman at Huawei Cloud, points out that industrial AI can be used commercially in this way, becoming the main driver for digitizing innovation.
For the new product, Huawei worked with Peng Cheng Lab, a Chinese research institute in Guangdong Province. “This is a new era of discovery,” Ken Hu said. “An ocean of limitless potential awaits, but it will not be just one ship. Today, we are launching a thousand ships. Let’s work together, seize this historic opportunity and take AI to new heights”.
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