Although the concept of artificial intelligence was proposed very early, it was really implemented in the application, that is, in the past decade or so. From smartphones to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence as a technology is subtly changing the traditional industrial form.
However, although artificial intelligence technology, especially the innovative fusion technology combined with concepts such as deep learning, is constantly developing, this change is also driven by market demand, and it is different needs that produce different artificial intelligence needs.
As the core element of artificial intelligence in addition to software, the chip element, although it has been changing continuously over the years, has not undergone earth-shaking changes in its market pattern.
Especially in the scenario of specific needs such as big data volume to parallel computing, GPU, as one of the computing architectures of artificial intelligence, has occupied a large share in the market after years of development. So how many real players are there in the GPU market? What is the share of Chinese manufacturers?
The role of GPU changes, and the market explosion becomes inevitable
From the perspective of the size of the global GPU market, according to the data released by Verified Market Research in August 2021, the global GPU market size will be $25.41 billion in 2021. With the continuous growth of market demand, this data is expected to reach $246.51 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of 32.82%. It can be said that whether it is from the perspective of market size or the growth rate in the next few years, the GPU market has a good prospect.
From the perspective of segmentation, the latest data from Jon Peddie Research (JPR) shows that in the fourth quarter of 2021, the shipment of GPUs used by PCs (including integrated and discrete graphics cards) reached 110 million. Among them, the shipment of discrete graphics cards was about 13 million pieces, an increase of 3% month-on-month and 18% year-on-year.
From a manufacturer's point of view, in the field of integrated graphics, Intel is the world's largest GPU supplier, the main factor is that Intel's CPU and GPU are bundled, that is, as a form of integrated graphics running in the PC. In the discrete graphics space, Nvidia has an 81% market share, and AMD has the remaining 19%. Although Intel has also begun to introduce discrete graphics, it is still short and has not yet formed a market size.
Whether from the perspective of integrated graphics cards or standalone graphics cards, these three manufacturers almost exclusively occupy the vast majority of the GPU market, that is, among the global GPU suppliers, in addition to these few, the vast majority of manufacturers have limited market share and do not have much presence.
JW Insights said that in addition to the GPU market used by PCs, the terminal market is also dominated by GPUs used in smart phones, but from the perspective of the development of the smartphone and PC markets in recent years, the two are a situation of trade-off, even in the current epidemic situation, the PC market has grown, and the smartphone GPU market has been declining, so from the overall situation, the terminal GPU market can be said to be declining in recent years.
In addition to this market, GPUs also include servers, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and other markets, but in the final analysis, the ultimate service target and underlying technology of these markets are artificial intelligence, so in the view of JW Insights, the current GPU market can be simply summarized as the PC/smartphone market and the artificial intelligence market, as well as three other markets.
On the other hand, according to data released by Jon Peddie Research in December 2021, the number of global GPU vendors was 16 in 2020, and this number rose to 19 in 2021.
The main factor in this growth is that GPUs are no longer just special processors in specific demand scenarios. More than a decade ago, the main role of GPUs was the graphics processor in the PC, and its role was to drive the computer to perform graphics operations. In the current market environment, especially with the continuous development of artificial intelligence and machine learning functions, the machine needs to handle more and more work tasks, the computed data is getting larger and larger, the CPU processing method has been unable to meet the needs of computing, and the GPU has changed from a special processor to a more general processor because of its characteristics.
Where is the demand for the Chinese smart chip market?
So what role do Chinese manufacturers play in the GPU market? Since the demand for GPUs in the artificial intelligence market is so huge, and the global GPU market size is growing so rapidly in the future, where are the opportunities for Chinese manufacturers in the future?
According to data released by LeadLeo in 2021, in 2019, the market size of Chinese intelligent integrated circuits was 9 billion yuan, and according to forecasts, this data will grow to about 69 billion yuan by 2025. Among them, the artificial intelligence integrated circuit market mainly includes three major market segments: GPU, FPGA and ASIC. However, it is worth noting that in this market, GPUs are not the market with the largest market share, and ASICs dominate due to their wider customizability.
But as mentioned before, although from the predicted data, GPUs may not become the largest artificial intelligence chip market in China, but from the perspective of global GPU market demand and market size, GPUs still have broad market prospects.
However, in the "Top 100 Chinese Semiconductor Companies (2021)" released by the analyst team of JW Insights, there are not many GPU design companies or manufacturers specializing in the GPU field that we can see, the most prominent of which are Jingjiawei and Zhaoxin.
According to public information, Changsha Jingjia Microelectronics Co., Ltd., founded in 2006, is a major participant in domestic GPUs and the only enterprise that has been independently developed and has been commercialized on a large scale.
After more than ten years of development, Jingjiawei has successfully developed a series of graphics processing chips represented by JM5400, JM7200 and JM9, and successfully realized industrialization. According to the report of Jiwei Network in March 2022, Jingjia micro JM9 series graphics processing chips have been successfully released a few days ago, and the application fields cover geographic information systems, media processing, CAD-aided design, games, virtualization and other high-performance display and artificial intelligence computing fields.
The official website of Zhaoxin shows that Zhaoxin also masters the three core technologies of central processor, graphics processor and chipset, has the ability of independent design and research and development of relevant IP, and is committed to providing users with general processors and supporting chips with superior performance, stable and reliable through independent innovation and compatible with the mainstream development route, and promoting the overall development of the information industry.
There are many players from domestic manufacturers, but the potential has yet to be tapped
In addition to the above two companies in the "Top 100 Chinese Semiconductor Enterprises (2021)", in fact, there are many players in the domestic GPU field.
For example, not long ago released the first domestic high-performance 4K graphics card GPU chip "Fenghua No. 1" of the core technology; fully self-developed, the first domestic cloud 7nm GPGPU product card "Tianyuan 100" tianshu zhixin; as well as Biren Technology, Moore thread and Muxi integrated circuit, etc., these domestic GPU companies are almost just established in recent years, but they have seen the domestic market for the broad demand for GPUs and the long-term development of the future and the emergence and layout.
However, for these domestic GPU manufacturers, it is still difficult to enter the GPU market and be able to take root.
JW Insights believes that GPUs have completely different requirements for the efficiency and calculation methods of GPUs due to the huge amount of data computing, which makes them more complex than CPUs. Looking at foreign manufacturers, almost all of them have been immersed in this field for decades, with deep technology accumulation and patent reserves, domestic GPU manufacturers want to make breakthroughs in this field, first of all, they need to break through this threshold.
Secondly, because the design of the GPU is more complex, its system is huge, and the technology involves a wide range. The computing process of GPUs not only involves a lot of graphics, but also requires mathematical and logical analysis capabilities, and it also needs to be supported by an extremely professional team in the design and manufacturing process. In other words, GPUs not only need the support of advanced processes, but also have high chip design costs, which causes not many companies that can design and manufacture. At the same time, the ecology of GPUs is also the main factor supporting its subsequent development.
In summary, whether it is technology, patents, talents or ecology, it is not an easy thing for domestic GPU manufacturers that have just started.
However, it is precisely because of the broad market prospects of GPUs that domestic GPU manufacturers have more opportunities and development space. Especially for the application field of a variety of flowers in the Chinese intelligent market is more so, the huge and complex market demand has spawned a variety of chip demand, throughout the history of the development of artificial intelligence chips, it is not difficult to see that no general-purpose chip can solve all problems alone.
At present, whether it is the global or domestic artificial intelligence market is in the rapid development of the early solution, the market pattern is far from certain, although from the current market division, European and American manufacturers with long-term technology accumulation, firmly occupy the high-end field, but for domestic GPU manufacturers, it is not completely without opportunities, the demand for low-end market, with the continuous efforts and construction of domestic manufacturers is still promising.
JW Insights believes that although the number of domestic manufacturers involved in GPUs in the "Top 100 Chinese Semiconductor Companies (2021)" is not much, the fundamental reason is that domestic players started late, and they are still in the early stages of technology accumulation and development, from the perspective of the demand of the entire domestic market and the current market attention, in the next few years, there will be more and more domestic GPU manufacturers rising. (Proofreading/Sami)