Samsung to mass produce Baidu's AI chip Kunlun from next year

Samsung Electronics it will start mass producing 14-nanometer (nm) artificial intelligence (AI) chip called “Kunlun” for China’s Baidu from early next year. Baidu has become Samsung’s first big customer in the Chinese foundry market, where most of the local companies outsource chip manufacturing to Taiwanese foundry firms including TSMC.

Samsung and Baidu have closely worked together to develop the product from its development stage. Baidu Kunlun is China’s first cloud-to-edge AI chip, which can be utilized in many fields, ranging from cloud to edge computing. A Samsung official said the chip’s high performance is achieved through Baidu’s homegrown architecture XPU and Samsung Electronics’ 14-nm process technology and I-Cube package solution.

Samsung succeeded in improving power/signal integrity by more than 50% compared to previous solutions by applying foundry solutions optimized for high performance computing (HPC). The solutions generate less noise when a signal is sent to the chip and ensure stable operation of circuit by maintaining voltage at certain levels, according to Samsung.

Samsung Electronics plans to expand its business portfolio to AI, HPC, and cloud though collaboration with Baidu. Samsung’s advance into the Chinese market is expected to help the company achieve its goal of becoming No.1 in the global system semiconductor market by 2030.


Keun-Hyung Yoo noel@donga.com