Why Alibaba Is Betting Big On Ai Chips As Well As Quantum Computing

From MIT's Technology Review, September 25:

Meet the human being behind Alibaba’s run a hazard on emerging tech.

During the opening ceremony of Alibaba’s 2018 computing conference end week, Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud, invited the MC to gustatory modality around tea on the stage—but, first, to distinguish betwixt tea roasted past times mitt in addition to past times machine.

While the MC stared helplessly at ii saucers filled amongst nearly identical-looking tea leaves, Hu pulled out his smartphone. He took a photograph of each saucer in addition to fed them into an app developed past times Tmall, 1 of Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Using an algorithm peculiarly trained to rank the divergence betwixt dissimilar kinds of tea leave, the app solved the problem.

It was a pocket-size instance of the interplay betwixt Alibaba’s enquiry on key technologies in addition to the demands of its business. Later on inward the four-day conference, the fellowship announced to a greater extent than plans to develop technologies that could last turned into useful things inward everyday life, including an AI-chip subsidiary called Pingtou Ge in addition to a squad that’s developing a quantum processor.

The individual leading all these enquiry efforts is Jeff Zhang, Alibaba’s primary applied scientific discipline officeholder in addition to caput of its DAMO Academy enquiry lab. Zhang sat downward amongst MIT Technology Review at the consequence to hash out his company’s plans.

TR: Why did Alibaba practise a chip company?
Zhang: This gives us an advantage. Chips are becoming to a greater extent than specialized. Many companies are developing AI chips, only each fellowship has dissimilar information loads in addition to draw organisation needs. This way each fellowship needs customized chips optimized for its ain software. This is something traditional chip companies can’t do.

But of course, nosotros volition also utilize around already widely used chip designs, in addition to combine these amongst our ain designs to practise to a greater extent than value.

What draw organisation model volition the chip fellowship pursue?
There are 3 routes. The commencement is IP licensing. We tin license our chip designs for other companies to use. The minute is providing processor solutions for diverse industries through IP aggregation. For example, nosotros tin render customized processors for domicile appliances in addition to cars. The tertiary is making chips for our ain cloud in addition to information centers.

What virtually Alibaba’s route map for quantum computing?
This is going to play out over a longer term, because nosotros don’t accept a processor for it yet. Once nosotros accept a processor, we’ll demand to respond the enquiry of what to role it for. Quantum computers mightiness last proficient for applications inward cryptography or large simulations of materials, only they volition non last suitable for all kinds of tasks. And the to a greater extent than qubits you lot have, the to a greater extent than challenges in that place are, because you lot demand to brand certain all these qubits tin travel together seamlessly in addition to reliably...

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"The 10 Biggest Artificial Intelligence Startups inward The World"