Graphcore is joining Baidu’s PaddlePaddle hardware ecosystem, following an announcement by the Beijing-based technology giant at its 2020 Wave Summit.
The collaboration will enable PaddlePaddle developers to deliver machine intelligence breakthroughs using IPUs, across a wide range of AI applications. The two companies also signed an agreement to jointly promote innovative AI applications and help establish uniform industry standards.
PaddlePaddle is China’s first open-source, fully functional, commercial deep learning platform. It has built a community of more than 1.9 million developers and serves 84,000 businesses. Baidu co-founded PaddlePaddle in 2016, along with 13 partners, for the purpose of accelerating the wider adoption of deep learning and AI applications in the Chinese market. Since then, more than 230,000 models have been created on PaddlePaddle, making it the leading deep learning platform in China.
Announcing the partnership, Baidu PaddlePaddle said: “Graphcore is a key PaddlePaddle partner for cloud training and inference. By joining PaddlePaddle, more developers will have the chance to take advantage of Graphcore’s IPU technologies for machine learning innovation to reduce training time and improve development efficiency.”
The announcement is testament to the rapid progress that Graphcore is making in China, integrating with popular AI platforms and working with leading commercial AI innovators.
In the past year, we have grown to be a team of 20 people, working across Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. We are providing machine learning application support to customers and also have Field Engineering technical support teams on the ground.
There is tremendous excitement around the potential of AI in China and a wealth of world-leading expertise working to realise that potential. We’re thrilled that Graphcore will help power that next generation of discovery.
