The race among semiconductor makers to gain an edge in the booming market for specialised AI processors has just given rise to the world’s biggest computer chip.

While chip circuitry continues to get smaller, the slab of silicon, developed by Californian start-up Cerebras, has a surface area slightly larger than a standard iPad and is 56 times bigger than its closest competitor. It also eats up as much electricity as all the servers contained in one and a half racks — the towers of computers in data centres that stand more than six feet tall.

The mammoth chip, due to be unveiled on Monday after nearly four years of development, is the starkest sign yet of how traditional thinking is being turned on its head as the chip industry struggles with the demands of artificial intelligence.