# Project Brainwave **Domain:** AI Inference / FPGA Computing / Cloud Infrastructure **Doc Type:** Technical Project Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Project Brainwave is Microsoft's platform for real-time deep-learning inference in cloud and edge environments.** It uses FPGA-based configurable processing, a distributed hardware architecture, and a compiler/runtime layer to serve trained models with low latency. ## Crown Jewel position [[articles/Pax Silica's Crown Jewel|Pax Silica's Crown Jewel]] uses Project Brainwave as the inference counterpart to [[wiki/Project Adam|Project Adam]]'s training architecture. The project makes the co-design argument concrete: configurable silicon, datacenter networking, numerical representation, compilation, and model serving operate as one performance system. This documented architecture is a technical antecedent for the article's broader concept of [[wiki/Substrate Determinism|substrate determinism]]. ## Routes [[wiki/Microsoft Research|Microsoft Research]] · [[wiki/Project Adam|Project Adam]] · [[wiki/Intel|Intel]] · [[wiki/Commercial Cloud Platforms|Commercial Cloud Platforms]] · [[wiki/Inference|Inference]] · [[wiki/Substrate Determinism|Substrate Determinism]] ## Sources / Provenance - Microsoft Research, [Project Brainwave](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-brainwave/). - Microsoft Research, [Microsoft unveils Project Brainwave for real-time AI](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/?p=421017), August 22, 2017. - Microsoft Research, [A Configurable Cloud-Scale DNN Processor for Real-Time AI](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/a-configurable-cloud-scale-dnn-processor-for-real-time-ai/), 2018.