SK Telecom deploys Xilinx FPGAs for AI acceleration, outperforming GPUs by 5x performance or 16x performance per watt
Xilinx
A global leader in adaptive and intelligent computing
Outperform GPUs by 5 times the performance or 16 times the performance per watt
August 16, 2018, Beijing, China - Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), a global leader in adaptive and intelligent computing, and SK Telecom (SKT) today jointly announced that SKT has deployed Xilinx FPGAs in its data centers to accelerate its artificial intelligence (AI). SKT's automatic speech recognition (ASR) system uses Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGAs to accelerate its voice-activated assistant NUGU. Compared with using GPUs, SKT's automatic speech recognition application performance has increased by 5 times and the performance per unit power consumption has increased by 16 times. This move marks the first commercial application of FPGA accelerators in the field of AI in large-scale data centers in South Korea.
FPGA accelerators can reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of automatic speech recognition application servers by adding efficient Xilinx FPGA expansion cards to existing CPU servers. ASR servers can easily accelerate multiple voice service channels by simply inserting Xilinx FPGA cards in free slots. One FPGA card can provide more than 5 times the performance of a single server, thereby significantly reducing costs. This performance and TCO advantage benefits both SKT and its customers.
We have been watching the industry evolve for many years and are proud to be at the forefront of AI accelerator development. We designed a solution based on the Xilinx KCU1500 board and combined it with our own bitstream image to develop such a cost-effective and high-performance application.
—— Kang-Won Lee , Senior Vice President of SKT Software R&D Center
Pictured: SKT’s NUGU and Mi-ni NUGU smart speakers are the world’s first portable artificial intelligence (AI) speakers that support Korean.
In the first quarter of this year, NUGU's monthly active users (MAU) exceeded 3 million, ranking first in South Korea. In addition, the number of AI service areas has also been growing rapidly.
Xilinx FPGA's adaptive capabilities can facilitate the rapid deployment of customized hardware accelerators for rapidly evolving fields such as AI and deep learning. In addition, compared with CPUs and GPUs, FPGAs can provide higher performance and lower latency at lower power levels. With the help of FPGAs, SKT can compete with many well-known commercial data centers and join the rapidly growing ranks of FPGA computing acceleration.
We are very pleased that Xilinx FPGAs can be deployed in SKT AI data centers and create the first commercial deployment of FPGA accelerators in the field of AI in large-scale data centers in Korea. Xilinx Kintex UltraScale KCU1500 FPGA reflects Xilinx's significant competitive advantage in similar applications. Xilinx will continue to focus on various technical capabilities and innovations in the field of data center acceleration.
— Manish Muthal , Vice President of Data Center Marketing at Xilinx
SKT plans to demonstrate its FPGA-based AI solution at the Xilinx Developer Conference (XDF) to be held in Silicon Valley on October 1-2 and in Beijing on October 16 .