Time for a little deep learning worship. Naveen Rao and the Intel Nervana team just unveiled the Nervana neural network processor (NNP) at the NIPS conference.
This is the dedicated silicon to accelerate deep learning that I have been rooting for over the past three years, after leading their founding investment round. Here is the overview on their importance that I wrote when Intel acquired them last year: https://medium.com/@DFJvc/intelligence-inside-54dcad8c4a3e
I think machine learning is of fundamental importance to every business over time. More specifically, I think the application of iterative algorithms (e.g., machine learning, directed evolution, generative design) to build complex systems is the most powerful advance in engineering since the Scientific Method. Machine learning allows us to build software solutions that exceed human understanding, and shows us how AI can innervate every industry.
By crude analogy, Nervana is recapitulating the evolutionary history of the human brain within computing — moving from the logical constructs of the reptilian brain to the cortical constructs of the human brain, with massive arrays of distributed memory and iterative learning algorithms.
Carey Kloss summarizes the NNP breakthrough here: https://www.intelnervana.com/intel-nervana-neural-network-processor-architecture-update/
I am wearing my Nervana shirt today!
Congrats to all, including Amir Khosrowshahi on the right.
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