Chip comparison
AWS Inferentia 2 vs Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit)
Side-by-side specs
Straight from each vendor's datasheet. Winner in bold: higher throughput, memory, or transistor count; lower power draw or price. Sparse (2:4) throughput roughly doubles the FP8/INT8 numbers shown.
| Field | AWS Inferentia 2 | Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) |
|---|---|---|
| Process node | TSMC N7 | GlobalFoundries 14nm |
| TDP | 250 W | 375 W |
| Memory | 32 GB HBM3 | 0.23 GB SRAM (230 MB on-die) |
| Memory bandwidth | 820 GB/s | 80,000 GB/s |
| FP16 (dense) | — | 188 TFLOPS |
| BF16 (dense) | 190 TFLOPS | — |
| FP8 (dense) | 380 TFLOPS | — |
| INT8 (dense) | — | 750 TOPS |
| Form factor | Inf2 EC2 instance | PCIe (GroqCard) / rack-scale GroqRack |
| Announced | 2022-12-01 | 2020-01-01 |
| Released | 2023-04-01 | 2021-06-01 |
Robots running AWS Inferentia 2
No robots publicly running it yet.
Robots running Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit)
No robots publicly running it yet.
Data centers with AWS Inferentia 2
No data centers publicly running it yet.
Data centers with Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit)
No data centers publicly running it yet.
Common questions
AWS Inferentia 2 vs Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): which is faster for training?
AWS Inferentia 2 has 2.02x the dense FP16/BF16 throughput of the other (AWS Inferentia 2: 380 TFLOPS; Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): 188 TFLOPS). Real-world training speed also depends on memory bandwidth, interconnect, and software stack: see the spec diff for those inputs.
AWS Inferentia 2 vs Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): which has more memory?
AWS Inferentia 2 carries more HBM (AWS Inferentia 2: 32 GB HBM3; Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): 0.23 GB SRAM (230 MB on-die)). Memory capacity sets the largest model that fits on one chip without partitioning; memory bandwidth sets inference throughput.
AWS Inferentia 2 vs Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit): which is more power-efficient?
Dense FP16/BF16 TFLOPS per watt: AWS Inferentia 2 1.52 (380 ÷ 250 W); Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) 0.50 (188 ÷ 375 W). AWS Inferentia 2 wins at the die level; system-level efficiency also depends on cooling and interconnect.
See also: every chip comparison · AWS Inferentia 2 full page · Groq LPU (Language Processing Unit) full page.