Brief news summary

Etched, a startup specializing in transformer-focused chips, has introduced Sohu, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that claims to surpass Nvidia's H100 in AI LLM inference. A single 8xSohu server supposedly matches the performance of 160 H100 GPUs, potentially reducing costs for data processing centers. Current AI accelerators are designed to support various AI architectures, resulting in a large portion of computing power being allocated to programmability. However, the popularity of the transformer AI architecture has prompted Etched to develop Sohu specifically for transformer models. This move could pose a threat to Nvidia's dominance in the AI space. Additionally, Sohu's specialized design may help address the power consumption concerns associated with AI data centers.