Over the past several years, artificial intelligence (AI) has quietly become part of our daily lives. The smart replies generated by your email or smartphone, the tagging of photos on social media, product recommendations on e-commerce sites, the directions provided by mapping apps, and the music and video recommendations on streaming services all use the predictive power of AI.
Graphics processing units (GPUs) from NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) were the early beneficiary of the trend, resulting in staggering growth since the dawn of AI. The massive parallel processing capability of GPUs to render images also turned out the be the best available solution for AI systems. The company's rivals have been scrambling to build a better mousetrap in an effort to seize control of the lucrative AI chipset market.
Three recent developments show just how heated the competition has become.