AI chip

AI repeats simple calculations an enormous number of times. Chips fitted to this work are called AI chips. They include the widely used GPU, custom chips (ASICs) that a single company makes for its own AI, and the NPU inside phones and laptops.

By use, they are split into training chips, which teach an AI, and inference chips, which let the trained AI give answers. The name is sometimes stretched to include memory such as HBM, which sits next to the calculating chip and feeds it data quickly. So when you see this term, check which chip it points to.

Just as the word vehicle covers buses, trucks and motorcycles, AI chip is a name that groups together several chips with different uses.

A large part of what AI companies spend goes to buying these chips. Without enough chips, a company can neither build a new AI nor widen its service, so they are seen as the foundation of the AI race.