PR85159

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 17, 2019 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Huawei released the full-stack Ascend AI software at the Huawei Ascend

Innovation (HAI) 2020 conference, setting a new milestone as Huawei and

partners are making strides forward to bring AI to reality. The release

includes the Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN) 3.0, MindStudio

full-pipeline development toolchain, and MindX for Ascend application

enablement. The software portfolio covers all the way from developing basic

software to deploying AI in real world.

Tony Xu, President of Huawei Ascend Computing Business, introduces the goal of

this release: To deliver AI computing power of the ultimate accessibility, ease

of use, and performance. The value of AI can be fully unlocked only when

industries can bridge the divide between AI computing and application.

Implementing this goal will bring benefits to developers and startups, as well

as numerous industries.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200817/2887096-1-a

Huawei's AI computing solutions boast advantages in superior computing power,

openness, ease of use, security, and low consumption. These AI solutions have

been widely used in sectors including healthcare, transportation, finance,

university education, scientific research, astronomical exploration, smart

city, and oil exploration.

CANN 3.0: Reimagine Efficiency and Performance for Computing Architectures

Basic architecture connects hardware and software, and is crucial to unlocking

AI computing power. Huawei released CANN 1.0 at HUAWEI CONNECT 2018. CANN 3.0

signifies an upgrade to a unified heterogeneous computing architecture.

CANN 3.0 supports backward compatibility. Using CANN as the computing

foundation for collaboration across devices, the edge, and the cloud,

enterprises can deploy one set of code on over 10 device form factors, more

than 14 operating systems, and multiple AI frameworks. This enables AI

development in all scenarios. In addition to being inclusive, CANN 3.0 is

simplified. AscendCL provides unified programming interface to meet developers'

requirements for custom frameworks and operators, enabling efficient

development. CANN 3.0 provides two operator development modes: TBE-DSL and

TBE-TIK, to deliver both efficiency and performance.

CANN 3.0 fully releases the performance of AI hardware by leveraging

competitive features. These features include a high-performance algorithm

library composed of over 1000 operators deeply optimized for Ascend; in-depth

graph optimization, automatic graph splitting and fusion, and intelligent

optimization of data pipelines.

Based on the highly adaptive software and hardware, Huawei Atlas hardware

equipped with CANN 3.0 surpasses industry peers on mainstream inference and

training models. In video scenarios, the Atlas 300I inference card, powered by

Ascend chips, can process 80 channels of 1080p 25FPS HD videos concurrently,

which is twice that of its industry counterparts.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200817/2887096-1-b

MindStudio 2.0: Full-Pipeline Toolchain Lowers the Barriers for AI Development

MindStudio 2.0 is released to facilitate development from end to end, covering

operator development, model training, inference, application development, and

application deployment. Developers gain unprecedented ease in AI development

and no longer need to perform such operations on different tools.

MindStudio supports training and inference scenarios. It provides an Ascend

training acceleration tool, which uses a unique Less BN algorithm to

intelligently identify unnecessary BN operators in the network, and a random

freezing algorithm, to greatly improve the model training efficiency. For

inference scenarios, the Ascend model compression tool uses unique intelligent

algorithms to accelerate the inference process.

MindX: 2+1+X Help Deliver AI Computing to Industries

Regarding AI computing, in addition to performance, Huawei attaches as much

importance to its ease of use. At HAI 2020, Huawei released MindX 1.0, which

features 2+1+X to accelerate the convergence of AI and industries. 2 indicates

the MindX DL deep learning platform and MindX Edge intelligent edge platform; 1

indicates the ModelZoo pre-trained model library; X indicates the software

development kits (SDKs) for various industries.

MindX DL focuses on unified management and scheduling of data center devices

and computing resources, enabling partners to quickly develop deep learning

systems. James Pei, President of 4Paradigm, a leading AI startup, shared how

4Paradigm and Huawei build a full-stack AI appliance.

The advantage of MindX Edge is that it can deploy edge-cloud collaborative

inference services on various devices at one click. The platform requires only

a memory overhead of 256 MB and a CPU usage of 3%.

ModelZoo is classified by scenarios and frameworks. It is the core driving

force for the two deep learning platforms: MindX DL and MindX Edge. Currently,

Huawei has provided more than 20 high-performance models in ModelZoo. The

number is expected to exceed 50 in the second half of this year.

Huawei Ascend takes one step further to enable AI applications across

industries by providing industry SDKs that are based on Huawei's basic

algorithms and expertise in AI. Currently, Huawei has deployed an Atlas-powered

smart manufacturing solution in the Songshan Lake Production Center. AI is

applied to detect label defects and missing screws within seconds. This

solution improves inspection accuracy from 90% (using traditional machine

vision) to 99.9%, and improves efficiency by 3 times, realizing the smart

manufacturing of Atlas by Atlas.

"AI has been applied on a large scale to workstations, production lines, and

workshops in Huawei's factories," according to Dr. Wu Jiayun, Head of Vision

Lab in Huawei's Industrial Automation Lab. More than 80 production lines in

Huawei factories have applied AI for producing servers, 5G products, and

terminals. The experience accumulated in the large-scale application will also

be packed into the SDKs for the manufacturing industry. It is expected that the

SDK combining vision technology with the manufacturing industry will be

officially launched in October this year.

In addition, more and more partners are using Huawei Atlas to empower digital

transformation of industries. The instant translator system iFLYREC, provided

by iFLYTEK, translates for HAI 2020 online, is based on the Atlas AI solution.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) also has a use case. According

to Chen Jianjun, Senior Manager of ICBC's Big Data and AI Lab, ICBC has

launched a Smart Brain based on Atlas hardware and basic software platform to

provide high-dimensional, low-latency, large-scale, and high-density computing

for the financial industry.

Huawei always prefers to provide the ultimate simplicity to customers and

partners, and take care of the complex part itself. According to Tony Xu,

Huawei's full-stack Ascend AI software helps maximize the performance of AI

hardware and lower the entry barriers to AI application. Ascend serves as the

platform for AI infrastructure and also the enabler of AI for industries.

Huawei is working with ecosystem partners to build a vibrant Ascend computing

ecosystem and together ascend to pervasive intelligence.

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications

technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. With integrated solutions

across four key domains – telecom networks, IT, smart devices, and cloud

services – we are committed to bringing digital to every person, home and

organization for a fully connected, intelligent world.

Huawei's end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both

competitive and secure. Through open collaboration with ecosystem partners, we

create lasting value for our customers, working to empower people, enrich home

life, and inspire innovation in organizations of all shapes and sizes.

At Huawei, innovation focuses on customer needs. We invest heavily in basic

research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world

forward. We have more than 194,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170

countries and regions. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company wholly

owned by its employees. For more information, please visit Huawei online at

www.huawei.com or follow us on:

http://www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei  

http://www.twitter.com/Huawei  

http://www.facebook.com/Huawei

http://www.youtube.com/Huawei

SOURCE: Huawei

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   Caption: Tony Xu delivering a speech at HAI 2020

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   Caption: Huawei releases a full-stack Ascend AI software platform