Benzinga | Apr 6, 2021 08:08AM EDT

GSI Technology Says Co, Partner Space Micro Awarded NASA Phase 1 Contract For Radiation Tolerant AI Processing In Space

GSI Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:GSIT), a leading provider of high-performance memory solutions for the networking, telecommunications and military markets, and developer of the Gemini(r) Associative Processing Unit (APU) for Artificial Intelligence, today announced that, along with prime contractor partner Space Micro, Inc., it has been awarded a Phase 1 contract by NASA to develop an optimal real-time data sorting inference processing unit (IPU) board for Earth observation missions that require higher processing power.



As sensors quickly advance, they produce large quantities of data that reveal a critical downside for space-based platforms. They require large amounts of mission data and calibration data to be downlinked, and their data products cannot be conveyed in near real-time. High-performance processors, such as the GSI and Space Micro IPU, are resolving these issues.

"We are pleased to have earned this opportunity to begin working with NASA for its Earth observation mission," said Paul Armijo, Jr., director of aerospace and defense business sector, GSI Technology. "Our highly skilled team of engineers looks forward to collaborating with NASA in support of the advancement of space exploration and the development of high-performance space computing technology."

The GSI and Space Micro IPU plugs into the main communication bus and offers enhanced parallel processing power, much like a supercomputer cluster. The main system can reconfigure the IPU device to scale up and down, specifying a specific state depending on the needs of the current task. For added performance and redundancy, multiple processors can be included on the same board, with the capability to stack multiple units together.

The cross-cutting radiation tolerant space on-board data processing product resulting from the NASA contract has the potential to enable many potential NASA space missions, including both manned and unmanned landers and experiments.