Building High-Performance Hardware for AI and Data
Building High-Performance Hardware for AI and Data Building high-performance AI hardware starts with a clear view of the workload. Are you training large models, running many inferences, or both? The answer guides choices for compute, memory, and data movement. Training favors many GPUs with fast interconnects; inference benefits from compact, energy-efficient accelerators and memory reuse. Start by mapping your pipeline: data loading, preprocessing, model execution, and result storage. Core components matter. Choose accelerators (GPUs, TPUs, or other AI chips) based on the workload, then pair them with fast CPUs for orchestration. Memory bandwidth is king: look for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) or wide memory channels, along with a sensible cache strategy. Interconnects like PCIe 5/6, NVLink, and CXL affect latency and scale. Storage should be fast and reliable (NVMe SSDs, tiered storage). Networking is essential for multi-node training and large data transfers (think 100G+ links). ...