Chinese crypto-miner Bitmain to provide AI training hardware
Less than two years after first entering the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, Beijing-based Bitmain has unveiled its first AI hardware products. The advanced fan-cooled module and customised tensor computing Application Specific Integrated Circuit are fully compatible with several AI platforms, and can be applied to products ranging from autonomous vehicles and robotics to the internet of things. The company's experience building hardware for bitcoin enabled the smooth transition into AI, said Bitmain CEO Micree Zhan.

Beijing-headquartered Bitmain, the world’s largest Bitcoin Bitcoin While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that Read this Termmining hardware producer, today announced its first products for accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

Gadi Glikberg

Earlier this year Finance Magnates exclusively reported that Bitmain decided to enter the AI market after we visited the offices of Bitmaintech Israel - the company’s first R&D center outside of China. Today the head of Bitmaintech Israel, Gadi Glikberg, told us: "We are very proud to be part of the software development effort of the Sophon products. Our AI researchers are focused on creating computer vision and NLP solutions that are optimized for the Sophon platform."

The new products are a customized tensor computing ASIC ASIC The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the prime regulator in Australia for corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit. It is empowered under the financial service laws to facilitate, regulate, and enforce Australian financial laws. The Australian Commission was set up and is administered under the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act of 2001. ASIC was initially the Australian Securities Commission based on the 1989 ASC Act. Initially, the Read this Term (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) optimized for training functions for deep learning networks and an advanced fan-cooled module that combines it into a compact, easy-to-integrate package. These can be applied in a variety of use cases including image and speech recognition, autonomous vehicle technology, enhanced security camera surveillance, robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more.

“Deep learning is very intensive computationally and our experience in creating high-performing hardware for Bitcoin has absolutely prepared us for this exciting area of computing,” notes Micree Zhan, Bitmain CEO. “AI hardware is an area that Bitmain is proactively developing to power the next generation of AI applications.

Bitmain saw trends in the AI business that were similar to the early days of Bitcoin, and so we started to explore AI toward the end of 2015. Now after only a year and a half, we have the mass-production chips in hand.”

The developers explain that the new products, called BM1680 and SC1, feature full compatibility with popular AI platforms, including mainstream Caffe, Darknet, Googlenet, VGG, Resnet, Yolo, Yoto2 and other models.