News Russian Baikal Electronics Set to Take on Nvidia with AI ASICs

[Admin]

After failing to develop competitive CPUs, Baikal kicks off development of AI ASICs.

Russian Baikal Electronics Set to Take on Nvidia with AI ASICs : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

I see this as a very uphill thing for Russia...
ignoring the political aspects they are limited on what they can use. That is a huge hurdle as the competition has much better access and stuff.

 

[atomicWAR]

I see this as a very uphill thing for Russia...
ignoring the political aspects they are limited on what they can use. That is a huge hurdle as the competition has much better access and stuff.

Agreed. Its tough atm to see how Russia could compete. I'd think they'd have an easier time convincing water it isn't wet considering Russia's current economic and technologic status in the world right now.

 

[gg83]

The Russian people are by far some of the most creative and deep thinking people I have ever met. If we weren't in the situation we are in now, Russia could be kicking butt in the tech space. I have a hard time believing Nvidia is worried about competitors in the AI space for a while.

 

[bit_user]

The venture expected to span three years and costing potentially 2 billion rubles ($21.25 million), according to estimates by a former employee of MCST, another Russian CPU developer.

According to what I've heard about modern chip design, that's at the very low end of what it would take to design something even for an old process node. And that probably even assumes you're mostly repurposing existing IP.

 

[bit_user]

ignoring the political aspects they are limited on what they can use. That is a huge hurdle as the competition has much better access and stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they can still use Korean fabs? If not, doesn't China have some 14 nm-grade production lines?

 

[hotaru251]

I'd think they'd have an easier time convincing water it isn't wet

but water is not wet.

Water makes stuff wet but itself is not wet.

 

[kerberos_20]

but water is not wet.

Water makes stuff wet but itself is not wet.

water is very corrosive, avoid touching

 

[usertests]

In theory, China-based SMIC can make certain chips for Baikal, but it may turn such orders down fearing further scrutiny from the U.S. government.

I can't imagine that situation will last forever. China is already seething about the U.S. dictating who they can sell to, and you can see that with the derailment of the Intel/Tower merger and threats of mineral export restrictions. By some point they will just do what they want.

SMIC is aiming for a non-EUV 5nm node by 2025. SMIC's 7nm or 5nm nodes should be pretty good. But even if Russia is stuck at 28nm, optimization can reduce hardware needs for AI.

 

[peachpuff]

If we weren't in the situation we are in now, Russia could be kicking butt in the tech space.

Right, they'd be using their amazing in house technique of importation to kick everyone's butt. Don't kid yourself, they're decades behind in tech to the rest of the world.

 

[bit_user]

Right, they'd be using their amazing in house technique of importation to kick everyone's butt. Don't kid yourself, they're decades behind in tech to the rest of the world.

Yeah, it's one thing to make an argument there are enough smart people in a country, but it's another to argue about what would be the state of their industry, because the latter depends on a lot of other factors. Things like the investment climate and the prevalence of corruption weigh heavily here.

Regardless, I think one probably can't extrapolate the trajectory of Russia's tech industry up to 2014 and have a credible argument that they would be "kicking butt in the tech space", if by that you mean CPUs and GPUs.

 

[alan.campbell99]

Indeed. I first thought to wonder whether the sort of grift you see in their defence industry is also present in their domestic tech industry; promise a product, take the money, line pockets with it.