'The fastest AI chip in the world': Gigantic AI CPU has almost one million cores — Cerebras has Nvidia firmily in its sights as it unveils the WSE-3, a chip that can train AI models with 24 trillion parameters

(Image credit: Cerebras)

Cerebras Systems has unveiled its Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3), dubbed the "fastest AI chip in the world."

The WSE-3, which powers the Cerebras CS-3 AI supercomputer, reportedly offers twice the performance of its predecessor, the WSE-2, at the same power consumption and price.

The chip is capable of training AI models with up to 24 trillion parameters, a significant leap from previous models.

CS-3 supercomputer

The WSE-3 is built on a 5nm TSMC process and features 44GB on-chip SRAM. It boasts four trillion transistors and 900,000 AI-optimized compute cores, delivering a peak AI performance of 125 petaflops – that’s the theoretical equivalent to about 62 Nvidia H100 GPUs.

The CS-3 supercomputer, powered by the WSE-3, is designed to train next-generation AI models that are 10 times larger than GPT-4 and Gemini. With a memory system of up to 1.2 petabytes, it can reportedly store 24 trillion parameter models in a single logical memory space, simplifying training workflow and boosting developer productivity.

Cerebras says its CS-3 supercomputer is optimized for both enterprise and hyperscale needs, and it offers superior power efficiency and software simplicity, requiring 97% less code than GPUs for large language models (LLMs).

Cerebras CEO and co-founder, Andrew Feldman, said, "WSE-3 is the fastest AI chip in the world, purpose-built for the latest cutting-edge AI work, from mixture of experts to 24 trillion parameter models. We are thrilled for bring WSE-3 and CS-3 to market to help solve today’s biggest AI challenges.”

The company says it already has a backlog of orders for the CS-3 across enterprise, government, and international clouds. The CS-3 will also play a significant role in the strategic partnership between Cerebras and G42, which has already delivered 8 exaFLOPs of AI supercomputer performance via Condor Galaxy 1 and 2. A third installation, Condor Galaxy 3, is currently under construction and will be built with 64 CS-3 systems, producing 8 exaFLOPs of AI compute.

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Wayne Williams is a freelancer writing news for TechRadar Pro. He has been writing about computers, technology, and the web for 30 years. In that time he wrote for most of the UK’s PC magazines, and launched, edited and published a number of them too.