AI CHIPS ARE HOT.HERE'S WHAT THEY ARE, WHAT THEY'RE FOR AND WHY INVESTORS SEE GOLD

The hottest thing in technology is an unprepossessing sliver of silicon closely related to the chips that power video game graphics

It's an artificial intelligence chip, designed specifically to make building Al systems such as ChatGPT faster and cheaper.

Such chips have suddenly taken center stage in what some experts consider an Al revolution that could reshape the technology sector and possibly the world along with it. Shares of Nvidia, the leading designer of Al chips, rocketed up almost 25% last week after the company forecast a huge jump in revenue that analysts said indicated soaring sales of its products. The company was briefly worth more than $1 trillion on Tuesday.

SO WHAT ARE AI CHIPS, ANYWAY?

That isn't an easy question to answer. "There really isn't a completely agreed upon definition of Al chips," said Hannah Dohmen, a research analyst with the Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

In general, though, the term encompasses computing hardware that's specialized to handle Al workloads - for instance, by "training" Al systems to tackle difficult problems that can choke conventional computers.

VIDEO GAME ORIGINS

Three entrepreneurs founded Nvidia in 1993 to push the boundaries of computational graphics.