Cloud Computing Services & Enterprise Solutions - Apsara 2022

Date: Oct 1, 2022

Hangzhou, China, October 19, 2021 – Apsara conference 2022, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today unveiled a new in-house processor design for use in its data centers. The server chips, named Yitian 710, are custom-built by Alibaba Group’s chip development business, T-Head. Powered by these chips, Alibaba Cloud also announced the development of its proprietary servers, called Panjiu. The combination is set to enhance the company’s leading cloud services by optimizing computing performance and energy efficiency Apsara conference 2022.

“Customizing our own server chips is consistent with our ongoing efforts toward boosting our computing capabilities with better performance and improved energy efficiency,” said Jeff Zhang, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence and Head of Alibaba DAMO Academy during the Apsara Conference, Alibaba’s annual technology flagship event. “We plan to use the chips to support current and future businesses across the Alibaba Group ecosystem. We will also offer our clients next-generation computing services powered by the new chip-powered servers in the near future Apsara conference 2022.”

“Together with our global partners including Intel, Nvidia, AMD and Arm, we will continue to innovate our compute infrastructure and offer diverse computing services for our global customers.” Zhang added Apsara conference 2022.

Built upon advanced 5nm process technology, Yitian 710 is powered by 128 Arm cores with 3.2GHz top clock speed to deliver exceptional performance and excellent energy efficiency. Each processor chip has 60 billion integrated transistors. Yitian 710 is the first server processor that is compatible with the latest Armv9 architecture and includes 8 DDR5 channels and 96-lane PCIe 5.0, providing high memory and I/O bandwidth Apsara conference 2022.

Yitian 710 achieved an estimated score of 440 in SPECrate2017 Integer, surpassing that of the current state-of-the-art Arm server processor by 20% in performance and 50% in energy efficiency. (Comparison based on best performing systems using the Linux operating system published at www.spec.org as of October 19th, 2021. SPEC and the benchmark name SPECrate are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation Apsara conference 2022. For more information about SPEC CPU 2017, see www.spec.org/cpu2017/.)

Panjiu was developed for the next-generation of cloud-native infrastructure. By separating computing from storage, the servers are optimized for both general-purpose and specialized AI computing, as well as high-performance storage. With a modular design approach for large-scale data center deployment, these servers are expected to deliver exceptional economic value for a wide variety of cloud-native workloads, such as containerized applications and computed optimized workloads Apsara conference 2022.

An AI Assistant Designed for Intelligent Notetaking Apsara conference 2022
Tingwu is an AI-powered meeting assistant developed by the Speech Lab of Alibaba DAMO Academy (DAMO), the global research initiative by Alibaba Group. The technology works by converting the content of spoken meetings into written minutes in real time with up to 98%* accuracy, delivering an efficient experience for users Apsara conference 2022.

“Underpinned by our end-to-end speech recognition solution, Tingwu’s accuracy and powerful features make it a perfect tool for businesses to host multi-location online and offline conferences and interviews. As enterprises continue to embrace the next generation of remote working, Tingwu is well-positioned to transform business meetings with productive and easy-to-use automated voice transcription capabilities,” said Zhijie Yan, Head of Speech Lab of Alibaba DAMO Academy Apsara conference 2022.

Using DAMO’s proprietary algorithms for analyzing voiceprints and bearings, Tingwu, unveiled during this year’s Apsara Conference, can distinguish between the voices of as many as 10 meeting participants. The assistant is equipped with a smart microphone, which can easily receive and recognize speech within a 10-meter range while reducing background noise Apsara conference 2022.

Tingwu’s ability to comprehend, powered by automatic speech recognition capabilities, natural language processing and deep-learning technologies, enables it to handle English, Mandarin and 14 other Chinese dialects as well as automatically correct or refine notes based on the entire context of a meeting. The assistant can also organize the minutes by keywords, generate a meeting summary and highlights and list out follow-up items Apsara conference 2022.

In China, Tingwu has been integrated into DingTalk, a digital collaboration platform created by Alibaba Group, to enhance meeting efficiency on the platform by automatically transcribing conversations and sharing notes with users Apsara conference 2022.

“The functionality of Tingwu will continue to expand, as we are now developing a model that can process mixed-language speech. We will also explore additional language options to prepare Tingwu for use in large multinational corporations and overseas markets,” Yan added Apsara conference 2022.