The Chen Tianshi group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS) Institute of Computing Technology recently released the world’s first deep learning processor, DianNaoYu.

Chen reveals that this invention will be put into production some time this year. As a result, new technologies like anti-fraud face-scanning software and picture search will likely be more reliable and easier to use in the near future.

“Deep learning refers to the method of training multi-layer artificial neural networks. Generally speaking, it is the way a computer imitates the human brain to learn, judge and make decisions using deep neural networks. This will remain as a hot research topic in the field of artificial intelligence,” said researcher Yi Jianqiang of CAS.

In 2010, Google used 16,000 processors running for seven days to train a cat in face recognition. More recently, the computer program AlphaGo beat the human Go champion, which required even more processors.

The deep learning processor that CAS has developed is roughly twice as powerful as the processor that AlphaGo used, which means that it can push artificial intelligence even further.

Though it has been 60 years since the development of artificial intelligence began, most experts believe the field is still in its early stages of development. There is a long way to go. Nevertheless, China’s deep learning smart chip has without doubt made a great contribution.