Bfloat16 is a half precision floating point format that has the same 8-bit exponent as single precision, but only 7 (plus 1 implied) bits of significand. Surprisingly, this turns out to be adequate precision for many machine learning applications, so a lot of resources are being put into making arithmetic in this format run fast.
Given that, it would seem to make sense to also try to use it for graphics. Using it for RGB components during calculation, for example, would allow a much wider dynamic range of light sources to be rendered, compared to just trying to calculate with 8-bit integers. At the same time, it could potentially be faster than using single precision floating point for RGB components.
Are any existing graphics rendering systems actually using it for such purposes?