Ironwood is Google’s newest AI accelerator chip

During its Cloud Next conference this week, Google unveiled the latest generation of its TPU AI accelerator chip. The new chip, called Ironwood, is Google’s seventh-generation TPU and is the first optimized for inference — that is, running AI models. Scheduled to launch sometime later this year for Google Cloud customers, Ironwood will come in two configurations: a 256-chip cluster and a 9,216-chip cluster. “Ironwood is our most powerful, capable, and energy-efficient TPU yet,” Google Cloud VP Amin Vahdat wrote in a blog post provided to TechCrunch. “And it’s purpose-built to power thinking, inferential AI models at scale.” Ironwood arrives as competition in the AI accelerator space heats up. Nvidia may have the lead, but tech giants including Amazon and Microsoft are pushing their own in-house solutions. Amazon has its Trainium, Inferentia, and Graviton processors, available through AWS, and Microsoft hosts Azure instances for its Cobalt 100 AI chip. Image Credits:Google Ironwood ... Read full article.