We've had GPU's and audio accelerators for many years on the PC, and recently physics and consumer-level network processing units from Ageia and Bigfoot Networks have been in the news. And now there's a new accelerator generating some buzz, the Intia AI accelerator from AISeek. AI Acceleration was discussed at this year's GDC and the company seems to already have preliminary hardware:
Here is a quote taken from the AISeek website that somewhat illustrates the company's vision...
"Game technology is continuously evolving to help developers build better games. Unfortunately, recent advances in graphics quality and physical effects have not been matched by a similar increase in the sophistication and believability of artificial intelligence (AI). In the words of one leading developer, "characters still act like cardboard cut-outs". Indeed, the vision of a "living, breathing" world is yet to be fulfilled - a world where thousands of non-player characters (NPCs) move and act intelligently at all times, within a large, constantly changing environment.
The AI acceleration technology developed by AIseek addresses this fundamental challenge. By accelerating CPU-intensive, low-level AI routines, AIseek frees developers to create sophisticated, higher-level AI on a massive scale. Moreover, with accelerated AI, game worlds can be large, complex and constantly changing - without compromising on the number or intelligence of the NPCs inhabiting those worlds."
Marco Chiappetta
Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com
