China set goal to challenge NVIDIA in AI market

When you're talking about artificial intelligence and machine learning, the name that keeps popping up is NVIDIA. The graphics chip designer created a competitive advantage in this market as its GPUs and the ecosystem it created around its chips are ideally positioned for this new wave of innovation.

However, China is aiming to become the world leader in artificial intelligence and the country's Ministry of Science and Technology is pouring a lot of money in this market. In particular, the ministry has outlined 13 transformative technology projects with a 2021 deadline.

Wired reports one criterion for a project specifically targets NVIDIA, as it calls for the development of a chip that offers 20x the performance and energy efficiency of the two-year old NVIDIA Tesla M40 GPU. One of the goals here is to ensure China has a domestic supplier, as the country does not want to rely on foreign chips for sensitive applications like military technology.

The Ministry of Science and Technology document lays out 13 “transformative” technology projects where it wants to put government money in coming months, hoping for delivery by 2021. One is to invent new chips to run artificial neural networks, the form of software propelling the AI ambitions of Google and other tech companies.

One criterion for the project refers specifically to Nvidia: the ministry says it wants a chip that delivers performance and energy efficiency 20 times better than that of Nvidia’s M40 chip, branded as an “accelerator” for neural networks. Now two years old, the M40 is not Nvidia’s latest and greatest chip, but is still used in AI projects.