PCB Technical - Tencent, the flexible circuit board, also joins the core making army?

Recently, according to the editor of the flexible circuit board, there are multiple chip research and development positions on Tencent's official recruitment website, including chip architects, chip verification engineers, chip design engineers and other positions. Work locations can be Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, etc.

In response to this, Tencent responded that based on some business needs, they have tried to develop some chips in specific areas, such as AI acceleration and video encoding and decoding, and non-general chips.

According to the editor of the flexible circuit board, so far, the Big Three of BAT have entered the AI chip track. Baidu and Ali entered the game as early as 2018 and have achieved certain results.

In 2018, Baidu released the cloud AI chip Kunlun. The first generation has been mass-produced, and the second generation is expected to be domestically produced in the second half of this year. Baidu also established an independent company for the Kunlun chip business in June this year. Ali established Pingtou in September 2018, and launched the first AI reasoning chip in 2019, which has already achieved mass production.

Tencent started late, but in the past Tencent has been paying attention to AI chips and invested in AI chip company Suiyuan Technology, which mainly focuses on AI training and reasoning chip products.

Now Tencent has begun to develop its own AI chips, starting with experiments in specific areas, such as AI acceleration and video encoding and decoding. Industry insiders believe that Tencent's self-developed AI acceleration and video encoding and decoding may be used in its own game business.

Why do self-developed AI chips need to conduct chip research and development in combination with their own application scenarios? The most important advantage is that they understand their own needs better than other chip suppliers. In addition, AI chips are a field where it is difficult to find a market, but combined with their own business needs In the initial stage, there is no need to worry that self-developed AI chips will not have an application market.

The editor of the flexible circuit board believes that the research and development of chips requires great manpower, technology and capital. It can be imagined that if you want to develop it, the future needs to invest huge funds, and Tencent’s self-developed AI chip is also worth looking forward to. In the future, it may be able to gradually launch products like Baidu and Alibaba, achieve mass production, and gradually grow.