This AI has designed over 100 new kinds of computer chips

According to ARMs CEO designing new computer chips is one of the most demanding engineering challenges of our time. But increasingly Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a stab at it – and succeeding in creating new computer chips that are fast, but that confound the experts when it comes to udnerstanding how they work.

Lurking inside your next gadget may be a chip unlike those of the past. People used to do all the complex silicon design work, but for the first time, AI is helping to build new chips for data centers, smartphones, and IoT devices. AI firm Synopsys has announced that its DSO.ai tool has successfully aided in the design of 100 chips, and it expects that upward trend to continue.

Companies like STMicroelectronics and SK Hynix have turned to Synopsys to accelerate semiconductor designs in an increasingly competitive environment. The past few years have seen demand for new chips increase while materials and costs have rocketed upward. Therefore, companies are looking for ways to get more done with less, and that's what tools like DSO.ai are all about.

The tool can search design spaces, telling its human masters how best to arrange components to optimize power, performance, and area, or PPA as it's often called. Among those 100 AI-assisted chip designs, companies have seen up to a 25% drop in power requirements and a 3x productivity increase for engineers. SK Hynix says a recent DSO.ai project resulted in a 15% cell area reduction and a 5% die shrink.

Synopsys says DSO.ai isn't taking anyone's job - yet. But it can automate the tedious, repetitive work that eats into engineering time, allowing humans to spend time on true innovations and new projects. For example, AI chip designing could allow companies without a large engineering staff to design their own chips. DSO.ai is particularly helpful in designing layouts for multi-die silicon, which comes with a lot of repetitive work. That said, no technology that automates the work humans used to do has resulted in more jobs for humans.

With all the AI innovations of late, it is starting to feel like a sea change in how we create things. OpenAI's ChatGPT, now embedded in Microsoft's products, can write stories, create computer code, and answer search queries in natural language. Meanwhile, OpenAI's Dall-e can win art competitions with AI-generated art. AI also plays a larger role in gaming, with many titles supporting AI upsampling technologies like DLSS. AI isn't an abstract idea anymore - we will increasingly see the fruits of AI labor in daily life.