Cringely thinks it should be simple to apply AI to chip design, building custom chip design models to iterate into existing simulators and refine new designs that have a good chance of being novel.

He said that chip design was like fixing cars in that a limited amount of Machine Learning data is required (think of logic cells as language words). It’s a small vocabulary has well-developed simulation tools for testing logic before it is built.

Cringely said that it should be simple to apply AI to chip design, building custom chip design models to iterate into existing simulators and refine new designs that have a good chance of being novel.

China will be the first to use this tech because the US is doing its best to freeze China out of semiconductor development, denying access to advanced manufacturing tools, for example. But China is arguably the world’s #2 country for AI research and can use that advantage to make up some of the difference.

Look for fabless AI chip startups to spring-up around Chinese universities and for the Chinese Communist Party to put lots of money into this very cost-effective work. Because even if it’s used just to slim down and improve existing designs, that’s another generation of chips China might otherwise not have had.