Huawei unveils open-source tech to tackle AI computing inefficiency

Chinese tech giant Huawei, in partnership with universities, unveiled and open-sourced an innovative AI technology on Friday, designed to dramatically boost the utilization of computing resources.

The framework, called Flex:ai, partitions a single AI chip into multiple virtual units with a granularity as fine as 10 percent. This "one-card-performing-multiple-tasks" capability, enabled by flexible resource isolation, can boost average compute utilization by 30 percent in these scenarios.

The rapid expansion of the AI industry is fueling massive demand for computing power, while low utilization rates of these resources have become a major bottleneck, with significant wastage hindering progress.

By open-sourcing Flex:ai, Huawei is set to grant global access to the full suite of its core technologies, according to Zhou Yuefeng, Huawei's vice president, who introduced the framework at a Shanghai forum.

(Cover via VCG)