Cloud providers turn to custom chips to meet high demand [Video]

With GPUs in short supply, cloud computing providers are increasingly turning to custom chips for specific workloads to deliver more cost-effective computing.

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Squeezed between AI-driven demand for ever-faster computing, and shortages of the GPUs used to accelerate those workloads, hyperscalers are designing custom silicon for specific workloads to further improve performance while cutting costs.

Microsoft added two new chips-for-hire to the huge variety of hardware instances in its cloud computing catalog at its Ignite conference last week — and all eyes are on AWS to see whether it reinvents its custom chip offering at its own event next week.

Some computing tasks, such as training and running AI models, can be speeded up by running them on GPUs instead of CPUs — but not all tasks can, so in addition to filling their data centers with GPUs from the likes of Nvidia and AMD, cloud services providers are also developing …