Apr 17, 2024 15:00:00

Will Intel cut the performance of its AI-specialized chip 'Gaudi 3' by 90% and ship it to China?

Intel announced the AI-specialized chip '

Gaudi 3 ' with performance exceeding NVIDIA's H100 on April 9, 2024. It has been revealed from Intel's documents that a Chinese version of this Gaudi 3 is being prepared.

Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI Accelerator White Paper
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/817486/intel-gaudi-3-ai-accelerator-white-paper.html

Intel preps lower-power Gaudi 3 chips for China • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/12/intel_paudi_3_china/

Gaudi 3 is an AI accelerator specialized for AI learning and inference, and is said to have performance that exceeds NVIDIA's H100. Details of the Gaudi 3 announcement can be found in the following article.

Intel announces AI accelerator 'Gaudi 3', which is faster and consumes less power than NVIDIA's H100 and even beats the H200 in some tests - GIGAZINE

Intel released detailed information on Gaudi 3 on April 12, 2024. The product specification list on the last page of the document lists products with model names 'HL-328' and 'HL-388' as products for export to China (PRC). The power consumption (TDP) of 'HL-328' and 'HL-388' is 450W, which is characterized by low power consumption compared to similar models.

If you look closely at the bottom of the specifications sheet, you will see that it says, 'Complies with US export rules for China.'

The United States regards China's AI research as a military threat and

restricts the export of 'semiconductors with a TPP (Total Processing Performance) exceeding 4800' to China. According to the overseas media The Register, in order to keep the performance of Gaudi 3 within 4800 TPP, it is necessary to limit the floating-point computing power to 150 TFLOPS or less. Since the computing power of Gaudi 3 in the standard state is 1835 TFLOPS, in order to export Gaudi 3 to China, it is necessary to limit the processing performance by more than 90%. It can be assumed that the low power consumption of Gaudi 3's model for China is also a result of the performance restriction.

In addition, NVIDIA, which holds a large share of the AI research chip market, continues to design chips exclusively for China that circumvent export restrictions and sell them to China. In response to this situation, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has expressed her desire to 'stop selling chips to China.'

America warns NVIDIA to stop manufacturing chips for China - GIGAZINE