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Re:Bfloat16 – Hardware Numerics Definition [pdf] by staticfloat on Saturday November 17, 2018 @10:06AM (#18475788)
Google uses it on their TPUs [0]. If you're interested in how it would effect the numerical stability of an algorithm you want to use, there is a Julia package that makes prototyping linear algebra over this datatype pretty straightforward [1].

[0] https://cloud.google.com/tpu/docs/system-architecture

[1] https://github.com/JuliaComputing/BFloat16s.jl

Re:Bfloat16 – Hardware Numerics Definition [pdf] by scottlegrand2 on Saturday November 17, 2018 @11:30AM (#18476127)
And Facebook is taking this even further. And while all these things are very cool, do not let ASIC designers claim they are barriers to entry for GPUs and CPUs. Whatever variants of this precision potpourri catch on are but a generation away from incarnation in general processors IMO...

https://code.fb.com/ai-research/floating-point-math/