On August 18, Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, released the self-developed second-generation Baidu Kunlun AI chip "Kunlun Chip 2" at the Baidu World Conference 2021 and announced that it had achieved mass production.
It is reported that the Kunlun 2 chip adopts a globally leading 7nm process and is equipped with a self-developed second-generation XPU architecture. Compared with the Kunlun 1 generation, the product's versatility is significantly enhanced, and its performance is improved by 2-3 times. This chip is the first general-purpose AI chip in China to use dedicated graphics memory, which is of great value for promoting the research and development and commercialization of AI chip technology in China. In addition, the Kunlun 2 chip also highly integrates ARM CPU computing power and supports high-speed interconnection, security, and virtualization.
Li Yanhong introduced that the newly upgraded "Kunlun Chip 2" can be applied to multiple scenarios such as cloud, terminal, and edge, and can be used in fields such as the Internet, smart cities, and smart industries. It will also empower a wider range of applications such as high-performance computer clusters, biological computing, intelligent transportation, and autonomous driving.
It is worth mentioning that Kunlun Core AI chips, in addition to having a self-developed XPU architecture and a number of independent designs, have also completed end-to-end adaptation with a number of domestic general-purpose processors such as Phytium, a number of domestic operating systems such as Kylin, and Baidu's self-developed PaddlePaddle deep learning framework, possessing full-stack domestic AI capabilities integrating software and hardware.
In July 2018, Robin Li announced that Baidu's self-developed AI chip would be named Kunlun, and a related business unit would be established. In March of this year, the Kunlun chip business completed an independent financing agreement, with a post-investment valuation of approximately 13 billion RMB. On June 25th, the Kunlun chip business established a new independent company—Kunlun Chip (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., with Ouyang Jian, Baidu's chief chip architect, serving as CEO.
Baidu Kunlun chip is a high-performance, general-purpose AI computing processor based on Baidu's self-developed advanced XPU architecture, designed for AI businesses in the cloud and at the edge. The first-generation Kunlun chip entered mass production in early 2020, and more than 20,000 units have already been deployed on a large scale, efficiently and stably supporting the AI business implementation of customers in industries such as intelligent cloud/computing centers, smart manufacturing, smart healthcare, and smart cities.
