In an era where AI is on the rise, enterprises large and small are grappling with how AI will impact their industry at large and, more critically, their business. This is especially true of technology companies that operate at the edge data center level and may find themselves at the forefront of this AI revolution. 

Blaize is uniquely poised to help enterprises unlock the potential of AI, by bringing to bear the innovation of our Blaize^® Graph Streaming Processor (GSP^®) technology and its unique architecture to the edge data center market. To add value, we must first understand where solutions fit in the complex edge data center value chain – a critical step for any enterprise. Whether optimizing operations, upgrading critical infrastructure, cutting costs, or finding ways to reduce power usage for a greener carbon footprint, an enterprise can take many actions to remain competitive. In this blog, we will look at who Blaize is, where our products fit in the value chain and the key advantages that set Blaize apart from alternatives. 

Who We Are

Blaize has developed a purpose-built, full-stack programmable processor architecture platform and a low-code/no-code software suite that enables AI processing solutions from the data center to the edge for high-performance computing in multiple large and rapidly growing markets, including retail, defense, and enterprise & industrial applications. Combining our innovative GSP and low-code/no-code software suite offers leading-edge capability and programmability for AI Inferencing, the key to setting Blaize apart in the industry.

Our Products at the Core

The Blaize fully programmable platform allows AI developers to build and run complete AI applications on a single architecture. In the edge data center, the Blaize GSP can help augment and accelerate AI Inferencing workloads more efficiently and at a lower cost than what conventional CPU, GPU, or FPGA-based solutions alone can handle. 

Blaize GSP is embedded in the Xplorer^® Accelerator Platform Family, which consists of three industry–standard card options purpose-built for easy integration into industry-standard data center systems: 

• Blaize^® Xplorer^® X1600P PCIe accelerator: designed for Industrial PCs and servers and packaged in a familiar half-height half-length plug-in PCIe interface for development, this card brings AI Inference to a multitude of enterprise and industrial applications. Delivering up to 16 TOPS within a typical 10w average power envelope. 
• Blaize^® Xplorer^® X1600P-Q PCIe accelerator: designed for data center applications and packaged in either a familiar full-height/full-length or half-height/half-length plug-in PCIe interface for development, bringing AI Inference to a multitude of enterprise applications. Delivering up to 64 TOPS at a typical 45W average power.
• Blaize^® Xplorer^® X1600E EDSFF accelerator: high-density enterprise E1.S card designed for the data center and edge applications via easy plug-in EDSFF interface, enabling servers and custom products to easily integrate AI inferencing. Delivering up to 16 TOPS at a 7W average power.

Image: Based on the enterprise and application needs, OEMs integrate Blaize hardware into AI server systems deployed in edge data centers of any scale

The Full Stack Blaize Software Suite complements Blaize hardware by providing industry-standard low-level APIs, drivers, and tools, a unique low-code/no-code developer platform, and a marketplace delivering a complete end-to-end solution. 

• Blaize^® Picasso^® Software Development Kit (SDK) – a graph-native and open software environment that accelerates AI application development using common languages such as C++, Python, and OpenVX. In addition, several machine learning frameworks are supported, including TensorFlow, Cafe2, PyTorch, and ONNX. The Blaize Picasso SDK has been designed to offer maximum control and customization for deeper optimization and flexibility.  
• Blaize^® Picasso^® Analytics Tool Kit – tailored for advanced analytics in AI applications, providing Independent Software Vendors and developers with a flexible software framework and a marketplace library of reusable processing components to enhance product offerings. By leveraging a graph-based framework, developers can rapidly create complex and specialized analytics applications with low latency and efficient execution. This simplifies the development process, reduces costs, and accelerates time to solution.
• Blaize^® AI Studio^® is a code-free developer platform designed to streamline the entire AI operational workflow that seamlessly integrates with Blaize devices. Blaize AI Studio fully democratizes AI with a no-code UI, which is ideal for subject matter experts with no developer experience. It also allows access to marketplace templates that assist in the fast deployment of AI Inferencing applications.
• Marketplace saving time is key, marketplace has several distinct pre-built offerings from Blaize or partner-built datasets, models, pre-post processors, as well as solutions. It can also be leveraged as an internal collaboration tool as new artifacts are developed within your organization.

End-to-end solutions for the Enterprise and Edge Data Center 

Within the Blaize product ecosystem, a full end-to-end solution can be realized by considering Blaize hardware, software, and marketplace. Together, these solutions can help the enterprise edge data center customer execute cost-effective solutions to enhance AI Inferencing capability of systems, providing sustainable power consumption and full programmability of a low-code, no-code development environment.

Image: Visualization of workflow between Blaize hardware, software, and marketplace working in tandem to deliver on the needs in the Enterprise Edge Data Center

Blaize is well-positioned to help enterprise-edge data center firms unlock the benefits of AI for their applications more efficiently and at a lower cost. Thanks to the unique hardware architecture designed for AI, Blaize-based edge data centers can execute AI Inferencing workloads more efficiently when compared to alternative solutions based on CPU or GPU architecture alone. The Blaize integrated software, coupled with an emphasis on optimizations targeting real-world applications, enables Blaize hardware to deliver significant performance and cost benefits that go well beyond the raw headlining TOPS number to help firms optimize for the AI landscape. As we continue our blog series, we will dive deeper into some of the benefits the full end-to-end Blaize hardware and software solutions deliver to adopters and look at some other real-world applications of Blaize solutions in verticals like Retail, Smart Cities, and Defense.