Broadcom Unveils Powerful AI Chip to Challenge Nvidia's Dominance

Broadcom's chip division has unveiled a new networking processor called the Tomahawk Ultra, which is designed to speed up artificial intelligence data processing. The chip acts as a traffic controller, allowing data to move quickly between dozens or hundreds of chips within a data center. The Tomahawk Ultra aims to compete with Nvidia's NVLink Switch chip, which serves a similar purpose. However, Broadcom's chip can connect four times the number of chips as Nvidia's offering. Additionally, the Tomahawk Ultra uses a boosted version of Ethernet, rather than a proprietary protocol, to move data between the connected chips. Both Broadcom and Nvidia's chips help data center operators and others tie together as many chips as possible within a small physical space, a technique known as "scale-up" computing. This allows software developers to access the immense computing power needed for advanced AI applications. The Tomahawk Ultra is now shipping, having been developed by Broadcom's engineering teams over the past three years.