“Chips that accelerate computing are everywhere, but there is no such thing as a universal accelerator, Huang says. Instead, every time a chip company enters a new market, it must learn new algorithms. They differ according to purpose; the algorithm for image processing would be different from the algorithm to model fluid dynamics. “Usually, some 5-10% of the code represents 99.999% of the run time,” Huang says. “So if you take that 5% of the code and offloaded it onto an accelerator, then technically you should be able to speed up the application a hundred times. The promise of this kind of accelerated computing has led to keen investor interest in the data center market, Huang says. He thinks this infrastructure can yet be improved. For one thing, the average data center is “super-inefficient, because it’s filled with air, and air is a lousy conductor of electricity.” Making data centers denser — eliminating the air, in other words — will make them cheaper and more energy efficient.”
Morten W. Langer
