Processors generating excess heat play a significant part in contemporary data center design, cost, and resource use. However, things could be vastly different if AI chips were more efficient and ran far cooler. South Korean chip startup DEEPX, recently featured by CNBC, thinks its AI chip designs are the answer. DEEPX demonstrated its DX-M1 processor’s cool-running capabilities in a bizarre new dairy-based thermal benchmark. While rival chips caused a knob of butter to sizzle in seconds, atop the DEEPX solution, the butter block remains solid.
Concerns over AI data center proliferation are growing worldwide. These developments are shaping business, the environment, and politics. Some people have very strong feelings about them, and hundreds of people have risked being thrown into jail protesting data centers. The CNBC report linked in the intro looks into why modern data centers are problematic, and indicates that the core issues stem from the use of hot-running processors and the extensive power and cooling apparatus they need.
DEEPX says its simple answer is to “make the AI chips themselves run cooler.” The CNBC video includes a demo of the ultra-low-power DX-M1 processor. In a side-by-side test against unnamed rival AI chips, you can see the DX-M1 NPU is clearly cooler. DEEPX CEO Kim Nok-won claims a temperature difference of 25 to more than 40 degrees Celsius compared with competitors. Kim said the side-by-side chips processed “the same AI workload… and every chip melted the butter except the last chip [DX-M1].”
The dairy-based thermal challenge is certainly eyebrow-raising, but we note some big gaps in the comparison information.
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