Facebook wants to develop its own artificial intelligence chips that go beyond what's currently on the market, according to a report from The Financial Times that's based on an interview with Yann LeCun, Facebook's chief AI scientist.
The idea is the chips will be able to provide the faster computing that Facebook needs in order to achieve new AI breakthroughs including digital assistants with common sense.
During the interview, LeCun reportedly indicated that Facebook is already developing its own custom ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) chips to support its AI software.
"Facebook has been known to build its hardware when required — build its own ASIC, for instance. If there's any stone unturned, we're going to work on it," LeCun said.
While Facebook is interested in developing its own AI chips, it also hopes to work with existing chip companies, according to the report.
LeCun gave a keynote at the 2019 International Solid-State Circuits Conference on Monday where he presented a paper titled "Deep Learning Hardware: Past, Present, and Future." In the paper, he writes that a new type of hardware is required to support AI. "This might require us to reinvent the way we do arithmetic in circuits," LeCun wrote in a separate blog post.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.