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Mark Gurman and Sarah Frier (Bloomberg) – Facebook Inc. has sent another signal that it is serious about building its own semiconductors, by joining Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc. Google, and Amazon.com Inc. trying to make its own custom chips.
The social networking giant hired Shahriar Rabii as vice president and head of the Silicon division. Rabii previously worked at Google, where he helped lead the team in charge of building chips for the company's devices, including the Pixel smartphone's custom Visual Core chip, according to his LinkedIn profile. It will work under the direction of Andrew Bosworth, head of virtual reality and augmented reality of society, according to people close to the record
Facebook and Google declined to comment on Rabi's move
Facebook began forming a team to design chips earlier this year, reported Bloomberg News in April. The company based in Menlo Park, Calif., Is working on semiconductors, which can be useful for a variety of different endeavors, including dealing with information from its vast data centers and its work. artificial intelligence
Google has developed more chips for its future devices. Later this year, California-based search giant Mountain View plans to launch new Pixel phones with upgraded cameras and an edge-to-board display on the new larger model, reported Bloomberg News in May.
part of a trend in which technology companies are looking to supply themselves with semiconductors and reduce their dependence on chip makers such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. Apple has has shipped its own custom processors to iPads and iPhones since 2010, and has created custom chip board to control Bluetooth, take photos and perform machine learning tasks. By 2020, the iPhone maker hopes to start shipping Macs with its own main processors.
Facebook, through its virtual reality division Oculus and its hardware divisions Building 8, is working on several future devices. Earlier this year, the company launched the Oculus Go standalone virtual reality headset with a Qualcomm smartphone chip. Facebook is also working on its first branded hardware: a series of smart speakers with large touch screens that can also be used for video chats.
Future generations of these devices could be improved by custom processors. With its own chips, Facebook would also have a finer control over product development and could better link its software and hardware.
Custom chips can also enhance the company's efforts in artificial intelligence. Facebook has been working on the use of AI to better understand the nature of content that people post on social media, so they can quickly eliminate hate speech, fake accounts and live violence videos. . But up to now, even human moderators have trouble judging content consistently.
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