Comment by roncesvalles
3 days ago
That slot is called USB-C. I can fully imagine inference ASICs coming in powerbank form factor that you'd just plug and play.
3 days ago
That slot is called USB-C. I can fully imagine inference ASICs coming in powerbank form factor that you'd just plug and play.
Like the chip-software in Gibson’s sprawl, from the micro-soft to the ROM cowboy to the Aleph, the endgame of computertool distribution is via single-use chunks of quasi-biological computronium
Michael Bay just read "computronium" and spawned an 8 movie franchise in his head.
This would be a hell of a hot power bank. It uses about as much power as my oven. So probably more like inside a huge cooling device outside the house. Or integrated into the heating system of the house.
(Still compelling!)
*the whole server uses 2.2kw or whatever, not a single board. I think that was for 8 boards or something.
Oh does it? Thanks for the clarification then. Their home page said 2.5kW so I assumed that's what it is.
To be fair, 2.5kW does sound too much for a single 3x3cm chip, it would probably melt.
1 reply →
Not if you need 200w power to run inference.
USB-C can do up to 240W. These days I power all my devices with a USB hub, even my Lipo charger.
Have you seen a device that can supply 240w and act as a data host? Or is the 240w only from dedicated chargers?
1 reply →
Pretty sure it'd just be a thumbdrive. Are the Taalas chips particularly large in surface area?
The only product they've announced at the moment [0] is a PCI-e card. It's more like a small power bank than a big thumb drive.
But sure, the next generation could be much smaller. It doesn't require battery cells, (much) heat management, or ruggedization, all of which put hard limits on how much you can miniaturise power banks.
[0] https://taalas.com/the-path-to-ubiquitous-ai/
I wouldn't call that size a small power bank. That chip is in the same ballpark as gaming GPUs, and based on the VRMs in the picture it probably draws about as much power.
But as you said, the next generations are very likely to shrink (especially with them saying they want to do top of the line models in 2 generations), and with architecture improvements it could probably get much smaller.
2 replies →
I’m old enough to remember your typical computer filling warehouse-sized buildings.
Nowadays, your average cellphone has more computing power than those behemoths.
I have a micro SD card with 256GB capacity, and I think they are up to 2TB. On a device the size of a fingernail.
2 replies →
800 mm2, about 90mm per side, if imagined as a square. Also, 250 W of power consumption.
The form factor should be anything but thumbdrive.
mmmhhhhh 800mm2 ~= (30mm)2, which is more like a (biggish) thumb drive.
4 replies →
Yes, bigger than a 5090's GB202 ASIC! :)
> USB-C
With these speeds you can run it over USB2, though maybe power is limiting.
You would likely need external power anyway.
USB-C is just a form factor and has nothing to do with which protocol you run at which speeds.
I wasn't talking about the form factor.