Rebecca Lewington, Technology Evangelist | August 3, 2022

Today was a proud day for the Cerebras family. Several of our founders and their families were at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for the unveiling of a new showcasing – literally – our very own Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE).

The event was streamed live, during which the museum’s President and CEO Dan’l Lewin joined Cerebras Co-Founder and CEO, Andrew Feldman to talk about the significance of our wafer-scale technology to the computer industry. The WSE marks the first time in the 70-year history of the computing industry that the seemingly insurmountable challenge of wafer-scale integration was solved, something that had stumped the industry for decades. Or as ZDNet so aptly put it, “Cerebras celebrated for chip triumph where others tried and failed.”

The museum’s senior Curator, Dag Spicer, published a very quotable blog today which contains some wisdom that I just have to share. The WSE has 2.6 trillion transistors across its massive surface, but this calculation really brings the scale of our achievement into focus:

“There are more transistors—by far—in this one Cerebras chip than in all 100,000 computing objects in the Museum’s permanent collection combined.”

Dag also quotes supercomputing pioneer Seymour Cray to drive home our founders’ motivation for persevering with wafer-scale technology:

“When asked why he did not favor using multiple small processors in his supercomputers, legendary computer designer Seymour Cray quipped, “What would you rather have pulling your plow? One large bull or 64 chickens?”

And my personal favorite, which is why I joined Cerebras in the first place:

“The scale, ambition and performance of the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine is almost beyond imagining.”

When they founded the company, founders Andrew Feldman, JP Fricker, Gary Lauterbach, Sean Lie and Michael James had a vision for forever changing compute. And they nursed an ambition to see their work on display in the Computer History Museum. Before the unveiling, Andrew said “It is the honor of a lifetime to be inducted into the Computer History Museum. I am incredibly proud of our team and grateful to the museum for adding us to their collection.”

HPCWire remarked that, “When Cerebras Systems had its coming out at Hot Chips in August 2019, the hardware community wasn’t sure what to think.” A short three years and numerous customer deployments later, it feels very special to see our founders’ ambition come to fruition, so early in our journey. Everyone at Cerebras has much to be proud of.

The new Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Learn more

Press release Computer History Museum Honors Cerebras Systems with New Display for Wafer-Scale Engine
CHM blog The Biggest Chip In the World
Live stream replay Cerebras Systems Founder and CEO Andrew Feldman in Conversation with CHM’s Dan’l Lewin
HPCWire article: Computer History Museum Honors Cerebras Systems
ZDnet: AI startup Cerebras celebrated for chip triumph where others tried and failed

Top image caption: Cerebras founders Sean Lie, Gary Lauterbach, Michael James, Jean-Philippe Fricker and Andrew Feldman with the Wafer-Scale Engine display at the Computer HIstory Museum in Mountain View, California.