HKUST and other universities in the city team with US researchers to work on AI chips

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has set up a chip research centre that is working with other universities in the city and the US to design advanced chips that power artificial intelligence (AI) applications, despite ongoing tensions between the US and China over semiconductors.

The centre, named the AI Chip Centre for Emerging Smart Systems (ACCESS), is working with Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong to create AI chips that are “1,000 times faster and more energy efficient than existing solutions,” the centre said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

It is “Asia’s first transnational consortium” to perform research and development on AI chip design, the centre said.

AI chips are processors optimised for data-intensive AI applications such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, allowing them to run faster while using less energy. Many existing solutions, which often have AI algorithms run directly on general purpose processors, are too slow and energy consuming, according to Professor Tim Cheng, HKUST’s Dean of Engineering and founding director of ACCESS.

Improving the energy efficiency of AI hardware can be likened to how “a smartwatch that needs charging every day could [in future] be charged every three months,” Cheng said.

Challenges facing the development of AI chips include a talent gap – people who understand AI algorithms do not necessarily understand chips and vice versa, said Cheng. The HKUST team is hoping that by gathering together talent with different expertise, it can come up with customised AI chip designs for specific applications within weeks.