{"id":208360,"date":"2025-03-11T16:03:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/domain-specific-architectures-for-ai-inference"},"modified":"2025-03-11T16:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:03:38","slug":"domain-specific-architectures-for-ai-inference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/domain-specific-architectures-for-ai-inference","title":{"rendered":"Domain specific architectures for AI inference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lPX1H3jW8ZQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>\n<em>Billions<\/em> of people may be continuously running AI inference for their waking hours in the near future. Satisfying this demand requires relentless focus on efficiency to reduce the required quantities of two key inputs: <em>energy<\/em> and <em>capital<\/em>. The constraints on these inputs in conjunction with the slowing and\/or stagnation of both <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Moore%27s_law\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Moore\u2019s Law<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dennard_scaling\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Dennard Scaling<\/a> has left hardware architects no choice but to pursue <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Domain-specific_architecture\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Domain Specific Architectures<\/a> (DSAs) \u2014 architectures tailored to the task at hand.<\/p>\n<p>The current dominance of GPUs in modern deep learning is largely accidental \u2014 it was pure serendipity that the computational workload of graphics and deep learning were similar. Remnants of their graphical heritage still persist in GPU architectures today. What would AI inference hardware look like if it was redesigned carte blanche? By working backwards from the AI inference workload, we can determine some optimal properties these DSAs should have. Furthermore, we will attempt to predict the direction the inference paradigm will shift over time \u2014 a crucial exercise for hardware architects and engineers alike to ensure return on investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Billions of people may be continuously running AI inference for their waking hours in the near future. Satisfying this demand requires relentless focus on efficiency to reduce the required quantities of two key inputs: energy and capital. The constraints on these inputs in conjunction with the slowing and\/or stagnation of both Moore\u2019s Law and Dennard [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1495,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}