Amazon Launches Inferentia, an ML-based Chip

Amazon.com has rolled out a microchip exclusively for ML (Machine Learning). The announcement was made on Wednesday. The new move by Amazon has put the company in a market along with other big chip makers like Intel Corp and Nvidia Corp.

Till now, Amazon has brought chips from Intel and Nvidia, whose semiconductors fuel up its subsidiary, AWS and cloud computing unit. But, the Seattle-based e-commerce company has started manufacturing its own chips.

The new chip is called Inferentia and will aid in“inference,” the mechanism of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm in processes like audio scanning and converting the audio into text-based requests.

Since Amazon will not be selling the chip in the market, Inferentia will not affect the business of Intel and Nvidia. Instead, the company will start selling services to its cloud users which will be running on the chip from 2019. If Amazon continues to depend on Inferentia, it could create a problem forboth Nvidia and Intel.

Apart from the ML chip, the company also launched a processor chip called Graviton. It is designed especially for its cloud unit. Graviton is fuelled by the technology from Arm Holdings, a company owned by SoftBank Group Corp.

Currently, the chips from Arm Holdings are used by mobile phones, but several companies are taking steps to use it for data centers. The chips by Arm Holdings represent a major challenge to Intel’s dominance in the chip market.