The Marketing Minute: Marketing With Layers
The Right Approach: Electro-Tek—A Williams Family Legacy, Part 1
It’s Only Common Sense: If You’re Not Differentiated, You’re Dead
Cross-Industry Hardware Specification to Accelerate AI Software Development
September 16, 2022 | IntelEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Arm, Intel and Nvidia have jointly authored a paper describing an 8-bit floating point (FP8) specification and its two variants E5M2 and E4M3 to provide a common interchangeable format that works for both artificial intelligence (AI) training and inference. This cross-industry specification alignment will allow AI models to operate and perform consistently across hardware platforms, accelerating AI software development.
Computational requirements for AI have been growing at an exponential rate. New innovation is required across hardware and software to deliver computational throughput needed to advance AI.
One of the promising areas of research to address this growing compute gap is to reduce the numeric precision requirements for deep learning to improve memory and computational efficiencies. Reduced-precision methods exploit the inherent noise-resilient properties of deep neural networks to improve compute efficiency.
Intel plans to support this format specification across its AI product roadmap for CPUs, GPUs and other AI accelerators, including Habana® Gaudi® deep learning accelerators.
FP8 minimizes deviations from existing IEEE 754 floating point formats with a good balance between hardware and software to leverage existing implementations, accelerate adoption and improve developer productivity.
The guiding principle of this format proposal from Arm, Intel and Nvidia is to leverage conventions, concepts and algorithms built on IEEE standardization. This enables the greatest latitude for future AI innovation while still adhering to current industry conventions.
Share on:
Testimonial
"Your magazines are a great platform for people to exchange knowledge. Thank you for the work that you do."
Simon Khesin - Schmoll MaschinenSuggested Items
Keysight Completes Acquisition of Synopsys’ Optical Solutions Group and Ansys’ PowerArtist
10/17/2025 | Keysight Technologies, Inc.Keysight Technologies, Inc., announced the completion of its acquisitions of the Optical Solutions Group from Synopsys, Inc., and PowerArtist from Ansys, Inc.
SAIC to Acquire SilverEdge Government Solutions
10/09/2025 | SAICScience Applications International Corp., a leading mission integrator supporting defense, space, intelligence and civilian agencies, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SilverEdge Government Solutions from private equity firm Godspeed Capital for $205 million in cash.
Qualcomm to Acquire Arduino
10/08/2025 | Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. announced its agreement to acquire Arduino, a premier open-source hardware and software company.
October 2025 SMT007 Magazine: Upgrading Your Production Software
10/01/2025 | I-Connect007 Editorial TeamEMS companies need advanced software systems to thrive and compete. But these systems require significant effort to integrate and deploy. What is the reality, and how can we make it easier for everyone? The October 2025 issue of SMT007 Magazine investigates business operations software and how best to achieve the necessary integrations.
Nolan’s Notes: Tariffs, Technologies, and Optimization
10/01/2025 | Nolan Johnson -- Column: Nolan's NotesLast month, SMT007 Magazine spotlighted India, and boy, did we pick a good time to do so. Tariff and trade news involving India was breaking like a storm surge. The U.S. tariffs shifted India from one of the most favorable trade agreements to the least favorable. Electronics continue to be exempt for the time being, but lest you think that we’re free and clear because we manufacture electronics, steel and aluminum are specifically called out at the 50% tariff levels.