4 ms·

I wonder if Chinese companies will use (or be allowed to use) TPUs. It seems like a pretty obvious way to have the NSA scoop up any Chinese AI advancements Chin

I wonder if Chinese companies will use (or be allowed to use) TPUs. It seems like a pretty obvious way to have the NSA scoop up any Chinese AI advancements China may want to keep secret.

NelsonMinar 9y ago
I wonder which Chinese companies are developing their own processors like TPUs.
- chapill 9y ago
  Well, they do have the fastest supercomputer in the world currently and it's made with homegrown chips. No Intel ME backdoors there. Smaller chinese companies could, for a little more money, get similar performance buying 8x V100 machines from NVidia. I don't think they want to share their advancements in AI fighter pilots with USA. They have a big lead.
  - olfactory 9y ago
    What is the hardest thing to accomplish with something like a TPU? Is it the IP or the fabrication? How does the TPU design offer improved performance? By leveraging IP or fabrication improvements?
    - deepnotderp 9y ago
      Neither, it's a matrix multiply systolic array ASIC, that's been done decades ago. There are host of Chinese companies developing similar processors.
      - olfactory 9y ago
        Why is Google investing in its own?
        deepnotderp 9y ago
        Cost advantage.
    - ucaetano 9y ago
      Scale. Even if you design the fastest chip, you need to convince people to use your proprietary solution that has 0 users currently. Until then you don't have enough volume and scale. Becomes a chicken-and-egg problem. Google was able to solve it by designing TPUs for internal usage first, therefore reaching minimum scale, and then making changes and offering it publicly. So you'd need to be: 1) Chip designer 2) Massive internal user 3) Cloud service provider I don't see any other company that has all 3. Amazon has (3), and maybe (1) if they hired the right people. Microsoft could have enough (2) to justify it, but they're going the way of FPGAs.
- wmf 9y ago
  Bitmain already announced some.
KirinDave 9y ago
It's interesting to me that the assumption here is that government actors are interested in this as opposed to the companies hosting them.
- chapill 9y ago
  Oh, I totally agree with you there. It's just I consider Google a government actor too.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    Does this mean you consider Google a government unto itself, or part of an existing government?
    - chapill 9y ago
      Google is the same as NSA, but exists as a dance around 4th amendment. Google can do the sort of spying the US government can't constitutionally do, then hand that over to the government, constitutionally, under gag order if necessary. It's all stagecraft. Same for Apple, Amazon, Intel, etc. Eric Schmidt runs HRCs campaign. Al Gore is on Apple's board. They are all set up to spy on us. Deep state. They hunt sys admins. If you're here, you're a target.
      - KirinDave 9y ago
        > Google is the same as NSA, but exists as a dance around 4th amendment You are a conspiracy theorist. > Google can do the sort of spying the US government can't constitutionally do, then hand that over to the government, constitutionally This is an agenda-driven redefinition of the word "spy" that I find disingenuous in the extreme. > It's all stagecraft. Same for Apple, Amazon, Intel, etc. Eric Schmidt runs HRCs campaign. Al Gore is on Apple's board. Firstly: Eric Schmidt founded a company designed to legally channel lots of money via analytics expertise into his favorite candidate, like every rich person does under the current set of laws. Neither of us has to like it, but he did not "run her campaign" and if they actually did? Wow, not a great job there. As for Al Gore? I've worked with Al Gore. He did some advisory work for my financial data startup, as part of our first round's venture firm. Our data was some of the most valuable data about consumers that can possibly exist, and had incredible applications for both surveillance and law enforcement. To the best of my knowledge, we were never pressured to hand over a byte to anyone. Quite the opposite. I specifically remember a conversation where he mentioned user data privacy was the single most important priority he felt we could have. So between my lying eyes, ears, and email history and your wild gesticulations about the evil overlordship, I'm gonna have to lean towards my own personal experience. Unless, of course, you got some actual evidence and not a room full of old coffee cups and red string up on the walls.

I wonder if Chinese companies will use (or be allowed to use) TPUs. It seems like a pretty obvious way to have the NSA scoop up any Chinese AI advancements China may want to keep secret.

NelsonMinar 9y ago

I wonder which Chinese companies are developing their own processors like TPUs.

chapill 9y ago
Well, they do have the fastest supercomputer in the world currently and it's made with homegrown chips. No Intel ME backdoors there. Smaller chinese companies could, for a little more money, get similar performance buying 8x V100 machines from NVidia. I don't think they want to share their advancements in AI fighter pilots with USA. They have a big lead.
- olfactory 9y ago
  What is the hardest thing to accomplish with something like a TPU? Is it the IP or the fabrication? How does the TPU design offer improved performance? By leveraging IP or fabrication improvements?
  - deepnotderp 9y ago
    Neither, it's a matrix multiply systolic array ASIC, that's been done decades ago. There are host of Chinese companies developing similar processors.
    - olfactory 9y ago
      Why is Google investing in its own?
      - deepnotderp 9y ago
        Cost advantage.
  - ucaetano 9y ago
    Scale. Even if you design the fastest chip, you need to convince people to use your proprietary solution that has 0 users currently. Until then you don't have enough volume and scale. Becomes a chicken-and-egg problem. Google was able to solve it by designing TPUs for internal usage first, therefore reaching minimum scale, and then making changes and offering it publicly. So you'd need to be: 1) Chip designer 2) Massive internal user 3) Cloud service provider I don't see any other company that has all 3. Amazon has (3), and maybe (1) if they hired the right people. Microsoft could have enough (2) to justify it, but they're going the way of FPGAs.
wmf 9y ago
Bitmain already announced some.

KirinDave 9y ago

It's interesting to me that the assumption here is that government actors are interested in this as opposed to the companies hosting them.

chapill 9y ago
Oh, I totally agree with you there. It's just I consider Google a government actor too.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  Does this mean you consider Google a government unto itself, or part of an existing government?
  - chapill 9y ago
    Google is the same as NSA, but exists as a dance around 4th amendment. Google can do the sort of spying the US government can't constitutionally do, then hand that over to the government, constitutionally, under gag order if necessary. It's all stagecraft. Same for Apple, Amazon, Intel, etc. Eric Schmidt runs HRCs campaign. Al Gore is on Apple's board. They are all set up to spy on us. Deep state. They hunt sys admins. If you're here, you're a target.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      > Google is the same as NSA, but exists as a dance around 4th amendment You are a conspiracy theorist. > Google can do the sort of spying the US government can't constitutionally do, then hand that over to the government, constitutionally This is an agenda-driven redefinition of the word "spy" that I find disingenuous in the extreme. > It's all stagecraft. Same for Apple, Amazon, Intel, etc. Eric Schmidt runs HRCs campaign. Al Gore is on Apple's board. Firstly: Eric Schmidt founded a company designed to legally channel lots of money via analytics expertise into his favorite candidate, like every rich person does under the current set of laws. Neither of us has to like it, but he did not "run her campaign" and if they actually did? Wow, not a great job there. As for Al Gore? I've worked with Al Gore. He did some advisory work for my financial data startup, as part of our first round's venture firm. Our data was some of the most valuable data about consumers that can possibly exist, and had incredible applications for both surveillance and law enforcement. To the best of my knowledge, we were never pressured to hand over a byte to anyone. Quite the opposite. I specifically remember a conversation where he mentioned user data privacy was the single most important priority he felt we could have. So between my lying eyes, ears, and email history and your wild gesticulations about the evil overlordship, I'm gonna have to lean towards my own personal experience. Unless, of course, you got some actual evidence and not a room full of old coffee cups and red string up on the walls.