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AI Sends AMD and Lisa Su Back to the Drawing Board

AI Sends AMD and Lisa Su Back to the Drawing Board

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?

AMD under Lisa Su is facing a pack of even more formidable foes than it did when it was slugging it out with Intel in the microprocessor market. Artificial intelligence has redrawn the competitive landscape and AMD is again in a disadvantageous position, playing catchup. Can it maintain the sales and valuation growth momentum created by CEO Su or will it spend many more years again fighting to become a viable player in the AI market?

Lisa Su cannot take victory laps.

Despite obvious winnings, the AMD chairman, president and CEO, cannot afford to take a break from the task of revitalizing the semiconductor supplier she has now led for 10 years.

On Monday, Su was in Taiwan announcing the launch of AMD’s newest artificial intelligence (AI) processors and explaining its strategy for taking on Nvidia Corp. in the battle for dominance of the emerging market.

It’s a story the market is eager to understand following the massive breakout of AI and the emergence of Nvidia as the leading vendor serving data centers, hyperscalers, cloud services vendors and other manufacturers in the sector. The question Su cannot yet answer, though, is how AMD will fare in this new competitive environment where it faces big and equally thirsty competitors.

Read More »AI Sends AMD and Lisa Su Back to the Drawing Board
The ‘Ideal’ EV: Cheaper with Less SiC?

The ‘Ideal’ EV: Cheaper with Less SiC?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
As many automakers gravitate toward Silicon Carbide (SiC) technology from silicon-based power electronics, is there room for a startup to propose a third way?

Ideal Power, the Austin, Texas-based inventor of B-TRAN, a bidirectional, bipolar junction transistor semiconductor technology, believes that its silicon-based power semiconductors can support EVs, renewables and electrification without the expense of Silicon Carbide.

CEO Daniel Brdar, in an interview with the Ojo-Yoshida Report, claimed that B-TRAN’s unique double-sided bidirectional AC switch delivers “substantial performance improvements” over conventional power semiconductors such as Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) and Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET). 

The near-term market for B-TRAN-based power switches includes transmission, distribution and protection circuits such as solid-state circuit breakers, relays and contactors in renewable energy, energy storage systems, microgrids and electric vehicle charging, according to the company.

But there is no denying that the electronic vehicle is Ideal Power’s big kahuna. 

Read More »The ‘Ideal’ EV: Cheaper with Less SiC?

In SDVs, IBM Has Honda’s Back

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The emergence of software-defined vehicles (SDV) compels OEMs to rethink their long-term software and hardware development strategy for future vehicles.

The complexity of architecting an SDV is overwhelming, to say the least, for most carmakers and tier ones.

The challenge of making an SDV software-defined isn’t just about adding communication links that enable over-the-air updates. Nor is it about beefing up the car’s central compute capability and reducing its ECU population.

The whole vehicle architecture has to be redefined to enable the [zonal] boxes inside a car to communicate, share resources and run different workloads.

This is akin to the evolution of a data center, in which all elements of the infrastructure, including networking, storage, CPU and security, are virtualized through abstraction, thus allowing resource pooling and automation to deliver infrastructure as a service.

Read More »In SDVs, IBM Has Honda’s Back
It’s a Multimodal World, After All

It’s a Multimodal World, After All

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The new frontier in AI is in multimodal models such as CLIP and Stable Diffusion. Because humans interact with the world through both vision and language, AI researchers believe machines, too, need multimodal channels.  Can something like LLaVA foster a “general-purpose assistant” that effectively follows multimodal vision-and-language instructions aligned with human intent? If so, at what cost?

We live in a tumultuous time.

Business reporters are often pressed to investigate commercial and technological advancements almost immediately after the scientific community breaks new ground. This is particularly true in the field of artificial intelligence.

With little time either for reflection or examination, reporters take scientists’ word on the Next Big Thing, reducing AI journalism to little better than stenography.  Remember when its promoters kept saying the autonomous vehicle is “just around the corner.”

Corporations, obliged to become AI prospectors, now face a similar dilemma. Like the 49ers of the Gold Rush, the first priority for a company hoping to strike it rich, is to stake a claim, only worrying afterward whether its particular AI investment is the mother lode or a dry hole.

Clouding our judgement further is the exponential growth of Nvidia. Money talks.

Read More »It’s a Multimodal World, After All
Chip Wars: How Far Will America Go to Win?

Chip Wars: How Far Will America Go to Win?

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake?

America is taking the gloves off in its battle with China over semiconductor innovations and manufacturing. The hostilities have moved beyond advanced processes and leading-edge chip production equipment. This is geopolitics writ large, a fight for dominance, economically and politically, of one entity by the other. Is the US willing to inflict pains on American and allied enterprises to achieve its objectives of forcing China to “play fair” and bow to America’s “supremacy”?

The Imperial Presidency struck again.

Export licenses that the Biden administration issued to Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. for sales of semiconductors to Huawei Technology Inc. were scratched on May 7, signifying a widening of its ongoing rift with China. It is a presidential election year in the US and contentious issues – such as trade with China – are fair game. Technology enterprises at home and above should brace themselves.

Read More »Chip Wars: How Far Will America Go to Win?
Could SoftBank's Son kill ARM with His AI Vision?

Could SoftBank’s Son Kill Arm with His AI Vision?

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
Arm, founded in 1990, more or less invented the business model of licensing circuits and computing architectures as intellectual property. It achieved success in what were then new, embedded markets, such as mobile phones, industrial and automotive electronics. The Arm architecture is now penetrating servers, AI, PCs and high-performance computing. But all is at risk if SoftBank insists on using Arm to compete with customers such as Nvidia. That is unless you consider Arm’s licensing business model will soon be on the wane due to a flight to RISC-V.

Nikkei reported last week that Arm Holdings plc is planning to set up an AI chip division and have an AI processor on sale in the Fall of 2025. And that this would be the behest of majority shareholder SoftBank Group and its CEO Masayoshi Son.

Arm has not previously sought to compete with its licensees and its independence was always seen as a strength. If SoftBank insists on indulging in vision-driven tinkering with the Arm business model, it could hasten the rise of the open-source, extensible RISC-V ISA as the go-to alternative to Arm.

Read More »Could SoftBank’s Son Kill Arm with His AI Vision?
Can Machines Outsmart Human Mischief?

Can Machines Outsmart Human Mischief?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Automation sits at a pivotal intersection between men and machines. Developing automated systems that don’t aggravate consumers is an art not yet perfected. Since the debacle of Amazon’s cashierless checkout systems, the new entrant in this game is Grabango, a startup with different technologies. 

Automation has always been a double-edged sword.

On one hand, automation is a priority for most corporations who strive to lower their operational costs, efforts for which they expect to be richly rewarded by Wall Street.

Some consumers who want to associate with the “cool factor” of autonomous vehicles, smart homes, or barcode checkout systems at the supermarket also welcome automation.  

On the other hand, automation also makes people suspicious.  

Read More »Can Machines Outsmart Human Mischief?