Axelera AI, a Netherlands-based prominent edge AI software and hardware provider, recently showcased its groundbreaking products at CES 2024, earning recognition as a CES 2024 Innovation Awards Honoree. Speaking to DIGITIMES Asia, Axelera AI's CEO & Co-Founder, Fabrizio Del Maffeo, shared insights into the company's journey and the capabilities of their AI chip and their YOLO ("You Only Look Once") Neural Network.
Axelera AI's journey
Founded in July 2021, Axelera AI has rapidly evolved into a company of 150 people with a unique technology offering in the past three years. The company's flagship product, the Metis AI Platform,combined with the YOLO Neural Networks for processing and its proprietary chip are designed for the edge vision market, with deployment in the hands of numerous customers. Del Maffeo emphasized the chip's high efficiency and competitive low-cost price compared to the on-the-market Nvidia cards, providing robust solutions for accelerating computer vision and generative AI workloads.
The surveillance systems market
Del Maffeo emphasized the versatility of Axelera AI's chip applications, highlighting the significance of computer vision in various scenarios. With the capability to connect to a maximum of 64 cameras, extracting valuable insights from the footage, the chip is valuable in surveillance applications where real-time monitoring and analysis are crucial for ensuring security and safety. This resonates with the growing trend in the security market, as indicated by a recent Prudour report forecasting a substantial increase in the generative AI market size for security to approximately US$ 2654 million by 2032. Axelera AI's chip will empower generative AI to analyze extensive data from diverse sources like video feeds and sensor data. As Axelera AI expands its reach into markets like medical and automotive, its focus on business-to-business and professional markets positions it at the forefront of the burgeoning generative AI landscape, offering efficient and powerful solutions for enhanced security measures across industries.
Agricultural scenarios
Beyond the traditional surveillance systems, Del Maffeo also provided an example of Axelera AI's chip application in agriculture. He suggests farmers can track the movement patterns of livestock by utilizing cameras equipped with Axelera AI's chip, enabling them to assess their health status based on their behavior. The chip can analyze the movement of pigs or chickens within their designated areas, allowing farmers to identify signs of illness or distress. This proactive approach to livestock management enhances overall farm productivity by enabling timely intervention and preventive measures, thus contributing to improved animal welfare and optimized farming practices. He indicated that drones equipped with the chip can also monitor crop health and growth patterns in real-time. This innovative solution enables farmers to make data-driven decisions regarding crop management, irrigation, and pest control, ultimately leading to increased crop yield and quality.
Metis AI
In a press release, Axelera AI announced global partnerships leveraging the Metis Platform for enhanced Edge AI capabilities. Their early access customers include System Electronics/Coesia Group, XXII, and Relay2, who see the value of Axelera AI's AI acceleration platform for industrial automation, video analysis, and Wi-Fi-enabled Edge Computing solutions. Axelera AI's Metis AI Platform, combined with the YOLOv5s network, offers a high-accuracy object detection pipeline at 480 frames per second, with full production-ready platforms projected to reach up to 800 frames per second by mid-2024. The company claims the platform demonstrates a 99% precision match with GPU-based inference models, ensuring optimal performance, usability, and cost-efficiency.
Democratizing AI
Fabrizio Del Maffeo concluded by expressing Axelera AI's commitment to democratizing AI, aiming to empower individuals and businesses with access to powerful AI technology.
"By offering affordable and powerful hardware, Axelera AI seeks to eliminate barriers to scalability and foster a culture of creativity and experimentation in AI development," Del Maffeo remarked.
