Huawei Releases Full-Stack Ascend AI Software to Bridge the Divide Between AI Computing and Application
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.facebook.com/Huawei
SOURCE: Huawei
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Caption: Huawei releases a full-stack Ascend AI software platform
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