The Benefits of Building New AI Accelerators with RISC-V - Cliff Young & Martin Maas

The Benefits of Building New AI Accelerators with RISC-V - Cliff Young & Martin Maas, Google DeepMind

There has been huge interest in building accelerators for AI in the decade since AlexNet ushered in the current deep learning revolution. Billions of dollars in capital have been committed, and many ambitious projects have been launched, across established manufacturers, hyperscalers, and startups. In this talk, we will reflect on our experiences at Google designing and deploying successful accelerators and the different ways that subtle challenges make effective acceleration hard. RISC-V potentially helps with these challenges, while lowering barriers to entry, reducing risks, and sharing the benefit of expertise and experience. We will make connections between our experiences and how RISC-V accelerates accelerator development itself, highlighting how the shared work on a RISC-V ecosystem for deep learning acceleration can be positive-sum, benefiting all who participate.