Wiwynn Corp (緯穎科技) on Friday said it expected continued strong shipments of its application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-based artificial intelligence (AI) servers this year, as it seeks to enter major cloud service providers’ (CSPs) supply chains.
Wiwynn’s CSP clients include Google, Amazon Web Services, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp.
The company is in talks to produce servers based on Google’s tensor processing units, Wiwynn CEO and president William Lin (林威遠) said on the sidelines of a company event in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of Wiwynn Corp
Like its parent company, Wistron Corp (緯創), Wiwynn is highly optimistic about the AI server business this year, as expanding AI applications continue to drive demand for servers based on ASICs or graphics processing units (GPUs).
GPU-based servers, mostly equipped with Nvidia Corp’s chips, are expected to account for the lion’s share in the overall server market, Lin said.
However, ASIC-based servers are likely to show larger shipment growth compared with that of GPU-based systems this year, he added.
GPU-based servers are used for AI training, as they deliver superior computing performance, while ASIC-based models are better for AI inference, given that they provide higher data throughput and memory bandwidth, Lin said.
It is still too early to expect large-scale adoption of on-device inference this year, as most inference computing continues to take place in data centers rather than in end-user devices, he said.
It is certain that some manufacturers that previously focused on GPU-based training systems have begun shifting toward inference, Lin said, adding that the trend would further lift the market share of inference servers this year.
Demand for the two types of servers is likely to be more balanced, he said.
The recent supply constraints on memory chips have affected the information and communications technology industry, but the impact on Wiwynn is limited, because the company’s major clients are large and wield strong bargaining power, allowing them to secure higher priority and adequate memory supplies, Lin said.
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