Amazon shifts some voice assistant, face recognition computing to its own chips

An Amazon Echo Dot displays a video feed of the backyard in a model home in Vallejo, California. Amazon said the shift to the Infertia chip for some of its Alexa work has resulted in 25% better latency, which is a measure of speed, at a 30% lower cost. — Bay Area News Group/TNS

Amazon.com Inc on Nov 12 said it shifted part of the computing for its Alexa voice assistant to its own custom-designed chips, aiming to make the work faster and cheaper while moving it away from chips supplied by Nvidia Corp.

When users of devices such as Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers ask the voice assistant a question, the query is sent to one of Amazon’s datacentres for several steps of processing. When Amazon’s computers spit out an answer, that reply is in a text format that must be translated into audible speech for the voice assistant.