Information sources:
Intel on April 15, 2024 on Gaudi 3 AI Accelerator White Paper
Intel on April 15, 2024 on the Gaud3 General Product Specifications
U.S. Department of Commerce On September 22, 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued the Implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act
Preface
On April 15, chip giant Intel disclosed in a white paper released on its official website that it had launched two "special chips" for the Chinese market.
One of them, the HL-328, which appears to be made of 5nm, is expected to be launched as soon as June, but compared to the international version of Gaudi 3, the performance of this chip is reduced by about 92%.
Why is China so targeted, and how should the mainland respond?
Castrated version of the chip
On April 9 this year, at Intel Vision 2024 held in the United States, the world's chip giant Intel released a new generation of Intel's AI chips.
The name of this chip is called Gaudi 3 AI acceleration chip, and it is also the most advanced AI chip currently from Intel.
According to the information, this new product is made of TSMC's 5nm chip process, and can bring at least 4 times (400%) of the computing energy increase in floating-point format, which is "Brain Float 16".
The "Brain Float 16" is specially optimized for artificial intelligence AI and deep learning DL applications. This type of special floating-point is currently used by many companies such as Google, Intel, and Arm in AI accelerators.
Therefore, this chip will gain a significant lead in mathematical computing and AI computing capabilities.
Compared with the H100 previously released by NVIDIA, this new product not only improves the artificial intelligence thrust performance by about 50%, but also improves the energy efficiency ratio by 40%.
And in the benchmark test of the chip, the international version of the Gaudi 3 is also half the shorter than NVIDIA's H100 in terms of training models.
Therefore, the data and test results released by Intel show that this should be the most advanced artificial intelligence AI chip currently on the market.
And the cost of this new product is much lower than that of Nvidia H100.
However, this chip will basically not appear in the Chinese market.
In order to be able to obtain sufficient profits and market in the Chinese market.
Two "castrated versions" of chips have been launched specifically for the Chinese market, namely HL-328 and HL-388.
Among them, the OAM-compatible mezzanine card model HL-328 is expected to be launched on June 24 this year and sold to the Chinese market.
The performance of this chip is estimated by the number of cores, operating frequency, and TDP of this HL-328 chip.
Compared to the latest international version of Gaudi 3, the performance of the chip is reduced by about 92%.
It can be said that this is not a "castrated version of the chip", but a "ultimate castrated version of the chip", and the performance is not even one-tenth of the international version of the Gaudi3.
The degree of castration is much more excessive than that of the Nvidia H800 and A800.
So, why is it so targeted at China?
The United States restricts China's technological development
The main reason for targeting China is the blockade of China's scientific and technological power by the United States.
In order to restrict China's scientific and technological development, the United States is trying its best to target China everywhere, restricting China, and hoping to return China to the "ancient times".
The mainland will not be allowed to surpass them in any scientific and technological power.
The degree to which the U.S. government pays attention to China's scientific and technological development is like a person with eight eyes who wish to watch China's scientific and technological development 24 hours a day.
Since 2018, the United States has begun sanctions against China's scientific and technological strength, and the U.S. Department of Commerce has restricted ZTE's purchase of products from the United States.
Since January 9, 2018, the U.S. government has made Huawei lose orders from U.S. carriers through state power.
And in April 2018, without any evidence, an investigation against Huawei was launched on trumped-up charges.
In addition, it also requires all telecommunications companies and carriers in the United States, as well as Huawei's own stores, to prohibit the sale of Huawei's mobile terminal equipment and communication equipment, which has hit Huawei's business in the United States.
Since then, the U.S. government has continued to hold on to Huawei, and has asked the Canadian government to arrest Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver.
And starting in 2019, the U.S. government also asked NATO countries in Europe to prohibit cooperation with Huawei, and also asked the governments of other countries to dismantle Huawei equipment together.
The U.S. government has exposed the nature of the ruffians and hooligans, just like a person who has no TV at home, and demands that the TV of his neighbors and relatives be smashed.
Let's just say that apart from the United States, there should be no such cheeky country in the world.
Later, it began to impose all-free sanctions on Huawei, prohibiting Huawei from using any technology related to the United States, so Huawei could not use chips, or even design chips, and was forced to reduce its business.
As the world's largest economy, adhering to the principle of "international free trade", the US government is exposing the face of bandits.
Later, the "Entity List" was also created.
And a number of well-known enterprises and well-known universities in the mainland are included in the list, as long as they enter this list, it means that this company and unit will not have the opportunity to trade in the United States.
By generalizing the name of "security" and without any factual basis, the U.S. government abuses export control measures and does not hesitate to use the power of the state to target our country's enterprises.
It is a typical "unilateral sanction" and "long-arm jurisdiction", that is, there is nothing to do when you are full.
Therefore, in order to limit the development of the mainland's scientific and technological strength, the United States can be said to have done everything in its power.
In October 2022, export restrictions to the mainland were issued for two consecutive times.
This is the infamous "CHIPS Act".
CHIPS Act
On August 9, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill against China's semiconductors.
The so-called "CHIPS and Technology Act" has been signed with a total of 280 billion US dollars, and the US government wants to restrict China through this "CHIPS Act".
Huge industrial subsidies of up to $52.7 billion and provisions to curb competition have been introduced.
I want to promote the "chip return" of the United States through this plan, and I want to take root in the industrial chain of chip manufacturing in the United States.
This bill not only provides huge subsidies, but also requires that once the subsidies of the American Chips Act are obtained, then the United States and its allied countries will be able to do so.
The bill prohibits subsidized companies from building or expanding advanced process chip factories in China and other countries of concern within a decade.
That is, if you get subsidies from the U.S. government, then you can't build or expand advanced chip factories in China.
On October 7 and October 17 of the same year, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued two more export controls on China's advanced semiconductors and computing equipment.
In this way, we want to limit China's development in the field of artificial intelligence.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo said in a public forum that the U.S. must not allow China to get these cutting-edge chips.
And it is even more impossible for China's chip technology to surpass that of the United States.
Not only that, but the U.S. government has also mobilized national power to not allow the world's chip giants to sell "the most sophisticated and highest-processing power" AI chips to China.
This is because the United States is afraid that China will have the ability to train cutting-edge AI models and achieve a comprehensive lead over the United States in the field of AI in the future.
Not only that, but at the end of last year, a number of investigations were launched on the current mature chip manufacturing node industrial chain, and the purpose of the investigation is to find that in the current chip industry chain, no Chinese enterprise foundry uses American related technology, or sells semiconductor related equipment to the mainland.
On March 29 this year, the U.S. government also revised the measures against China's export control issued on October 17, 2022.
In addition, we plan to "inspect AI semiconductor products exported from the United States to China one by one", and we do not intend to let go of any details.
Not only must the technical level of the product exported to the mainland be investigated, but the identity of the Chinese enterprise customer must also be provided, as well as the chip compliance plan and main use.
And some new chips are also included in the export control of the "CHIPS Act".
It also intends to sell AI chips and semiconductor equipment from NVIDIA and AMD to China, requiring Nvidia and AMD not to sell high-performance chips to China.
You must know that the previous Nvidia H800 and A800 are both very "castrated" versions compared to the performance of the H100.
However, the U.S. government still feels that it can't be done, and requires Nvidia, AMD, and Intel to significantly reduce the performance of the chips they sell.
What are the consequences of such restrictions on China by the United States?
Consequences of restrictions
The U.S. blockade of China's technology will only make it more and more uncomfortable for its own businesses.
It can be said that this is a move that damages itself by eight hundred.
You must know that the mainland, as the world's second largest economy, is also an important market for chip giants such as Nvidia, Intel, and AMD, and an important market source for the world's chip giants.
Many well-known enterprises in the mainland have always maintained a state of cooperation with these companies.
Moreover, the mainland's demand for AI chips is also very large, and the mainland's software giants have their own trained AI models and algorithms.
Therefore, the U.S. export controls on China will only make Chinese companies stronger and stronger.
In the face of US sanctions, Huawei has not only achieved a successful breakthrough, but also supported the mainland's semiconductor industry chain, which has enabled the mainland's semiconductor industry to develop rapidly, and the Kirin 9000S has also achieved the production of 7-nanometer chips, successfully reaching the world level.
Not only that, but because of U.S. export restrictions, the giant's "special version" chips have been unable to meet the demand.
Therefore, many major domestic Internet companies have begun to seek other solutions.
Huawei's HUAWEI Ascend series AI processors and Atlas AI computing solutions are a good choice for domestic enterprises.
The Atlas 900 SuperCluster AI computing cluster can support large-scale model training with more than one trillion parameters, and Huawei's high-density 800GE has improved computing power.
It is said that more than half of the domestic AI models are incubated by Ascend AI.
Therefore, the export management carried out by the United States will only make the development of mainland chips better and better, and will only slow down the development of enterprises in its own country, and the market will gradually become smaller.
This is also why these giants also want to produce a special version of chips for China, because they are also very afraid of losing the Chinese market.
On February 24 this year, the American chip giant Nvidia identified Huawei as the "biggest competitor" for the first time in multiple categories, including AI chips.
epilogue
Therefore, restricting others everywhere will only make your own country's technology market weaker and weaker, and make your own enterprises less and less competitive.
These "castrated version" chips simply cannot get enough market and demand, and will only help the mainland's AI industry and semiconductor industry develop faster and faster!
Information sources:
Intel on April 15, 2024 on Gaudi 3 AI Accelerator White Paper
Intel on April 15, 2024 on the Gaud3 General Product Specifications
U.S. Department of Commerce On September 22, 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued the Implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act