Meta announces AI training and inference chip project

FILE PHOTO: Meta Platforms Inc's logo is seen on a smartphone in this illustration picture taken October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Meta Platforms on Thursday shared new details on its data center projects to better support artificial intelligence work, including a custom chip "family" being developed in-house.

The Facebook and Instagram owner said in a series of blog posts that it designed a first-generation chip in 2020 as part of the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) program. The aim was to improve efficiency for the recommendations models it uses to serve ads and other content in news feeds.