Alibaba launches 'super chip AI' that processes 78,500 images per second

With its superior processing speed, Hanguang 800 chip will greatly enhance the product search performance on Taobao.

At the Apsara 2019 Meeting in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province on September 25, China's largest e-commerce group Alibaba launched the world's first high-performance AI reasoning chip. The Hanguang 800 chip, developed by Pingtouge Semiconductor, has 10 times more computing power than traditional graphics processing units.

Hanguang 800 chip launch ceremony.

In terms of what the chip can do, Alibaba says Hanguang 800 will significantly enhance performance in product search and personalized recommendations. Previously, the Chinese e-commerce giant took an hour to classify one billion product images uploaded by merchants to Taobao online shopping site every day and prepare for search suggestions and personalized. But with Hanguang 800, they can complete the task in just 5 minutes thanks to the image processing speed of over 78,500 frames per second.

In addition to its outstanding image processing speed, the Hanguang 800 chip is also capable of performing machine learning tasks faster, saving energy and providing additional automatic translation on e-commerce websites and advertising services. Alibaba said the chip will be used in the business but has not disclosed when the product will be available on the market.

Hanguang 800 is expected to help Chinese companies reduce their reliance on U.S. technology in the face of a trade war between the two powers, which is making business relationships between Chinese and US companies difficult. than. The chip business is the first step on Alibaba's long journey to become a technology company with the synergistic development of both hardware and software businesses.