China Produces World’s First Non-Binary AI Chip
China has launched the world’s first large-scale deployment of non-binary AI chips, driven by Beihang University’s Professor Li Hongge and his team. These chips integrate a new Hybrid Stochastic Number (HSN) system that combines binary and probabilistic logic, overcoming limitations in traditional computing such as high power use (the “power wall”) and incompatibility with non-silicon architectures (the “architecture wall”).
The team’s breakthrough blends the speed of binary logic with the efficiency of stochastic computing, significantly improving fault tolerance, energy efficiency, and interference resistance. Applications span touch interfaces, flight control systems, and instrument displays, where low-power, noise-resistant performance is critical.
Fabricated using Chinese semiconductor processes (110nm and 28nm CMOS), the chip also includes in-memory computing and system-on-chip (SoC) design, enabling parallel processing and reduced energy consumption.
Li’s team is now developing a dedicated instruction set architecture to expand use into AI model acceleration, speech and image processing, and other advanced computing tasks. Their work lays a strong theoretical and practical foundation for future hybrid probabilistic chip technology.