The final of the FPGA Intelligent Innovation International Competition was held in Chongqing!

The final of the 2019 China International Intelligent Industry Expo FPGA Intelligent Innovation International Competition, hosted by the China International Intelligent Industry Expo Organizing Committee and Intel Corporation, was held in Chongqing on the 26th. It aims to actively promote intelligent application innovation and international cooperation in cutting-edge technology fields such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and big data. It is another fruitful result of Intel's data-centric and future-oriented industrial ecology. In the end, Shenzhen Kunyun Technology, Beijing Qingfeng Times Technology and Shanghai PQ Labs won the first, second and third place respectively.

So, what fields do the three teams that won the championship come from?

Shenzhen Kunyun Technology (Shenzhen Kunyun Information Technology Co., Ltd.) is a high-performance artificial intelligence chip company. It was co-founded by international authorities in the field of custom computing chips, including Academician Lu Yongqing, a member of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dr. Niu Xinyu, and Dr. Cai Quanxiong. It independently develops customized data flow (CAISA) architecture and end-to-end automatic compilation tool chain RainBuilder, providing high-performance artificial intelligence acceleration chips and platform solutions, and providing high-performance, low-power, and low-latency artificial intelligence acceleration solutions for IoT front-end, edge, and back-end server devices.

According to reports, its CAISA chip architecture is divided into two layers, the upper layer is customized data, and the bottom layer is a unified chip architecture. Customization can ensure that the chip performance is strong enough, and generalization can ensure that the cost is low enough. The technology accumulated by the laboratory is to automatically configure the requirements of different algorithms to the chip through the compiler, and use the compiler to solve personalization, which not only solves customization and guarantees high performance, but also solves the problem of generality. This technology simulates the human design process through the compiler and automatically generates customized chips, which greatly reduces the threshold and cost of chip design.

Beijing Qingfeng Times Technology Co., Ltd. (LuxCreo) is a professional company dedicated to the development and sale of the world's fastest, most accurate and high-performance 3D printers, as well as providing overall industry solutions. At the end of 2016, the company developed the world's leading ultra-fast 3D printing technology LEAP™, which not only greatly improved the precision of 3D printing, but also increased the existing 3D printing speed by about 100 times. Based on the previous products, it has achieved the level of industrial-grade ultra-fast 3D printers, and has independent core technology and independent R&D and production capabilities.

In a previous media interview, Yao Zhifeng, founder and CEO of Qingfeng Times, said that the polarization of the 3D printing industry will gradually become prominent in 2019, and 3D printing companies with high-barrier hard-core technologies with independent intellectual property rights will occupy a high point in the new round of growth. They integrate software, equipment, materials and other series of industrial chains to provide overall manufacturing and production solutions according to customer needs. Companies that rely on copying foreign technology can only resell equipment or provide low-end proofing services because they have no core intellectual property protection, and will face more severe price wars in the new round of competition. As of June 2019, LuxCreo has submitted 53 patent applications worldwide, dozens of patent applications are being submitted, and 5 patents have been authorized. The fields involved include ultra-fast light-curing printing equipment, printing methods, resin materials used for printing, and parametric models of ergonomically designed soles, etc., and will enter the mass production stage in the near future. 

Shanghai Pinqi Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (PQ Labs) is headquartered in San Jose, Silicon Valley, USA. The company is committed to exploring the latest artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction technologies. PQ Labs' MagicAI artificial intelligence technology platform is one of the fastest neural network computing solutions in the world. Whether it is low-power edge computing or high-performance cloud computing, whether it is software acceleration solutions or ASIC chip acceleration solutions, MagicAI can provide the world's leading high-performance and low-power neural network computing solutions.

For example, according to the introduction, traditional deep learning technology cannot detect a large number of targets at the same time, while MagicAI can detect up to 10,000 targets at the same time, support up to 4096 x 2048 network resolution, and process up to 8.38 million pixels per frame. At the same time, MagicAI can detect objects as small as 10 x 10 pixels, and even objects far away in the 4K camera screen can still be accurately identified. This means that MagicAI can cooperate with 4K resolution photography and monitoring systems on the device side to quickly detect a large number of targets in the screen.

Intel is committed to promoting the construction of FPGA ecosystem with data as the center

At present, the application and deployment of transformational technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and autonomous driving have driven the rapid growth of the FPGA market, and the FPGA industry has entered the fast lane of development. FPGA is an important part of Intel's cloud-to-end technical strength. By combining with Intel's end-to-end computing technology, FPGA acceleration technology can better unleash the huge potential of data, and building an FPGA ecosystem is also a key focus for Intel to drive ecological evolution. This competition uses Intel's leadership in the global technology industry to attract and discover outstanding FPGA smart innovation projects around the world, link ecological resources, and accelerate the implementation of innovative applications.

Li Desheng, managing director of Intel's Strategic Cooperation and Innovation Business Unit, said at the final that Intel is not only a company that leads technological innovation, but also a company that continuously promotes the evolution of ecological development. It always adheres to the ecological concept of openness and win-win, and expands the depth and breadth of ecological cooperation. By working closely with partners, it actively builds an FPGA ecosystem, and through organizing smart competitions, industry-university-research docking, and training and certification, it discovers excellent teams, cultivates professional talents, incubates application innovation, and accelerates the development of the smart industry.

In addition to hosting competitions, Intel, with its leading technological advantages and the ability and experience of linking upstream and downstream industries, works with partners to support the vigorous development of the FPGA innovation ecosystem. The Intel FPGA China Innovation Center, established in Chongqing in December last year, is Intel's largest FPGA innovation center in the world. It is fully committed to promoting the construction of China's FPGA ecosystem, providing FPGA R&D personnel and innovative enterprises with an advanced end-to-end platform for development, testing and verification, and creating a comprehensive professional innovation incubation and acceleration center that integrates FPGA training and certification, innovation incubation, application display and ecological development. It will work with universities and ecological partners to carry out FPGA talent training and technology application research, hold national and even global competitions, and rely on Intel's leadership in the technology industry and ecological partners around the world to form a high-level, professional, and most influential FPGA industry cluster, accelerate the development of the FPGA industry and the implementation of applications, and add new momentum to a new round of technological innovation.

It is reported that since its establishment, the cloud acceleration platform of Intel FPGA China Innovation Center has been connected to more than 50 enterprises and scientific research institutions; in terms of talent training and certification, it has currently served 36 enterprise-level partners, set up 11 technical training courses covering elementary, intermediate and advanced levels, and provided relevant professional technical certifications.

Li Desheng pointed out that Intel FPGA China Innovation Center aims to train tens of thousands of FPGA talents for China in the next three years.