In 2021, five years after the AlphaGo shock in 2016, contrary to the fear of artificial intelligence portrayed in science fiction movies, AI technology has become a technology that can be easily found in our daily lives.
System semiconductor technology is the key to applying AI technology to various electronic devices. In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where new technologies are announced every time we wake up, the system semiconductor market is also experiencing waves of change.
Before simple calculation processing became important for purposes such as autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and Bitcoin mining, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) was the main system semiconductor, and the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) was a secondary feature. However, times have changed, and now the AP (Application Processor) installed in smartphones, the GPU that processes graphics tasks, and the NPU (Numeric Processing Unit) that represents the human brain are in the spotlight.
NPU in Korean means ‘neural network processing unit’. NPU is a device that performs complex matrix multiplication operations in deep learning using a deep neural network. Because NPU can perform calculations at a faster speed than CPU and GPU, it is the most optimized calculation processing system semiconductor for implementing artificial intelligence.
At the Pangyo Techno Valley Startup Campus, we met Kim Nok-won, CEO of DEEPX, a company specializing in NPU processors, and heard about DEEPX’s ‘NPU technology.’
Q1. Self-introduction and company introduction
CEO Kim Nok-won: After working at IBM, he worked as a senior researcher at Apple for three years and was a key AP developer for the ‘iPhone X’. He also published a paper titled ‘Deep Learning Accelerator’ in the world’s most prestigious journal in the field of artificial neural networks.
DeepX is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology company for ‘edge’ applications. We are developing Korea’s first deep learning acceleration processor (NPU, Neural Processing Unit) for Internet of Things (IoT) and edge device applications. Based on its excellent technology, DeepX is striving to provide high-performance, low-power, and low-cost embedded artificial intelligence solutions.
Q2. Features of our NPU technology
CEO Nokwon Kim: We are trying to apply AI technology to small devices. In general, creating electronic devices equipped with high-performance AI technology requires technologies in two fields: hardware and software. When installing a previously used CPU or GPU, there are restrictions on the size of the device. In order to operate in a low-power environment with a size suitable for small electronic devices, we focused on NPU technology.
If the product that currently shows the best performance among other companies’ NPU chips can process 3,000 images per second, DEEPX’s NPU technology boasts twice the performance and is small enough to be applied to small devices.
Q3. Areas where we want to apply our NPU chip are:
CEO Kim Nok-won: Typically, we plan to apply it to self-driving robots, cars, and drones. To use a drone as an example, when a user enjoys outdoor leisure, the drone can recognize the user and follow the user to take photos and videos. If applied to parking lot CCTV, it will not record 24 hours a day like it does now, but will recognize and record when there is a moving object. This allows you to focus only on moving objects when reviewing recorded video, improving security features and using CCTV storage space more efficiently.
Q4. Reasons for settling in Pangyo
CEO Kim Nok-won: Pangyo is home to many IT companies, so there are many companies in demand, and it is a good place to understand industry trends. I also think it is the best place to find young developers. Pangyo is a great environment for business development and is like a home for many startups. It is a place with a lot of potential for companies because they can collaborate with them and grow together.
Meanwhile, Kim Nok-won, CEO of DeepX, founded the company with the goal of contributing to the creation of a super-intelligent society capable of human-level cognitive abilities in IoT devices that will overwhelmingly exceed the human population in the future. We are focusing on developing low-power artificial intelligence hardware processors, AI algorithm optimization technology, and AI application services, and are creating technologies to be applied to self-driving cars, drones, and home appliances.
Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom
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