In the heat of the development of the Artificial Intelligence The use of a specific unit of measurement to measure processing speed has become widespread: TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), although it is true that it is also used in other technological fields. In this post we are going to explain qwhat are the TOPS and what is its function.
But what are we talking about with these units of measurement? A TOP translates into no less than a billion (with a»b») operations per second, the number of operations per second that an NPU can handle. In this way, a 40 TOPS processor would be capable of processing 40 billion operations per second. Truly impressive.
When we talk about "operation" we refer to the number of calculations generated by the neural networks by multiplying large amounts of data of different nature. The higher the TOPS figure, that is, The greater your computing power, the greater your processing speed..
The absolute numbers, expressed in billions or even trillions, are too large for the human brain to handle. Like when we talk about galaxies and distances in the Universe. That's why you have to use TOPS. A new metric for new needs.
Coming down to Earth, here are some examples to understand the importance of this value: The Qualcomm Snapdragon PC Copilot Plus come already equipped with 45 TOPS, while the new AMD AI 300 chips promise a capacity of 50 TOPS for laptops. Everything indicates that, to be considered part of the next generation era of AI computers’s most emblematic landmarks, the minimum requirement any product neural processing unit (NPU) is located in the 40 TOPS.
Computers and Artificial Intelligence
That's right: the TOPS is the unit of measurement that we must use when it comes to computers equipped with AI systems. That is, the new generation of computers that is already reaching the market. An effective resource by which the performance of a PC's NPU is specified.
You have to get used to this term: NPU, the processor in charge of artificial intelligence functions that more and more computers incorporate.
It is also important to know that, when reading the specifications of a computer, the figure we see expressed in TOPS does not completely accurately reflect how the AI is working. There is other factors which also influence their final performance. For example, optimizations in an AI model for a particular hardware component will undoubtedly affect the results, which means adding another variable.
However, we can use it as a reference about the real speed of the NPU and other related issues:
- First of all, it is an excellent AI application execution speed indicator on a computer: the more TOPS, the shorter the response time.
- It is also a good reference level of development of new algorithms and neural networks of a computer: the more TOPS, the greater computing power.
- On the other hand (although this already goes beyond the usual tasks of home computers), TOPS are a good way to measure the progress of the training processes of an Artificial Intelligence.
A useful, but unofficial meter
However, although important, TOPS has not yet been accepted as a standard and universal unit of measurement for Artificial Intelligence. The technology industry has not reached an agreement regarding the correct way to measure TOPS and it is very likely that he will never do it. At the moment, each manufacturer calculates it in its own way, which greatly reduces its reliability.
To this we must add that there are still many unclear details about what the real performance of AI is like, especially when they come into play. different factors that can influence the results in one way or another.
Most experienced users are already aware of these types of problems: while CPUs indicate a speed in gigahertz (GHz), Gamers They prefer to pay more attention to another meter: the TFLOPS (Floating point operations per second), the unit of measurement which is used in the specifications list of most video cards and game consoles. And that is if we are only talking about performance, without going into other aspects such as memory.
In short, since it is the NPU and the local GPU that are responsible for specialized AI tasks, a unit of measurement such as TOPS cannot be used to fully define the AI performance of a PC.
So for now we will have to talk about a valuable and quite practical indicator, but not definitive. Of course, they will serve as a reference when it comes to compare the NPUs of new computers with AI that are already coming to the market.
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