alt Hacker NewsLow-latency inference is a huge waste of power; if you're going to the trouble of making an ASIC, it should be for dog-slow but very high throughput inference. Undervolt the devices as much as possible and use sub-threshold modes, multiple Vt and body biasing extensively to save further power and minimize leakage losses, but also keep working in fine-grained nodes to reduce areas and distances. The sensible goal is to expend the least possible energy per operation, even at increased latency.
Replies
I think it's really useful for agent to agent communication, as long as context loading doesn't become a bottleneck. Right now there can be noticeable delays under the hood, but at these speeds we'll never have to worry about latency when chain calling hundreds or thousands of agents in a network (I'm presuming this is going to take off in the future). Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Low latency inference is very useful in voice-to-voice applications. You say it is a waste of power but at least their claim is that it is 10x more efficient. We'll see but if it works out it will definitely find its applications.