Highlights from a Successful #AIDesignForum 2019

Leading technology CEOs and industry thought leaders from across the computing ecosystem convened in San Francisco earlier this week at the second AI Design Forum™ to discuss the future of computing—from materials to systems. What was made clear from the thought-provoking keynotes and many sideline discussions is that AI and Big Data create tremendous growth opportunities for the industry, but to realize their potential requires new levels of innovation. At the same time, classic Moore’s Law scaling is becoming increasingly challenged. The two-dimensional scaling techniques that drove Moore’s Law for the past 40 years are no longer delivering simultaneous improvements in performance, power and cost. The industry needs a new playbook for semiconductor design and manufacturing to drive innovation in the AI Era.

Another key theme that emerged from the event is the need for new types of collaboration and co-design across the ecosystem. This is critical to accelerating innovation as the industry races to bring new chip architectures, devices and computing systems to market. For decades the industry has operated in a serial fashion where degrees of separation exist between materials innovation and chip makers and system designers. We need to shift this approach and start working together in parallel in order to enable higher performance, more efficient computing. This is where events like the AI Design Forum, hosted by SEMI Americas, the Electronic System Design Alliance and Applied Materials, can help by bringing together leaders and technology experts from different domains to share ideas, discuss solutions and find new ways to work together.

We will be discussing more takeaways from the event in future blogs. In the meantime, we put together the recap below of the AI Design Forum on Twitter to share a taste of some of the insightful commentary and opportunities for collaboration coming out of the event. You can also access Applied Materials CEO Gary Dickerson's presentation materials on our website.