A technology legend wants to design chips that are cheaper than expensive AI-enhanced processors produced by market leader Nvidia.
Chip designer Jim Keller has told Nikkei Asia that he wants to design the chips so he can gain some of the market held by the American giant, he told the publication.
Keller has skin the game, previously working for Intel, AMD and Tesla and was the lead designer of AMD’s Zen series.
He is currently CEO of chip design startup Tenstorrent which is readying to produce AI enhanced processors.
“There are lots of markets that are not well served by Nvidia,” Keller told Nikkei Asia.
Tenstorrent
Last month Tenstorrent announced an agreement with Baya Systems which produces system IP and foundation software for intelligent computing systems.
The agreement sees Tenstorrent licensing Baya’s Weave IP fabric to scale its AI and chip solutions. This will allow Tenstorrent and its partners to analyze, customize and deploy its intelligent compute platform for current and future workloads and deliver highly scalable chiplet solutions to meet the emerging demand.
“Baya makes great, comprehensive fabric tools. Their tools start with top level architecture then allow us to plan at a detail level including performance modeling, transport, quality of service and cache coherency,” Keller said.
The Tenstorrent-Baya agreement shows there is room for smaller players in the AI hardware market developing niche applications.
This week Japan’s SoftBank acquired British AI chipmaker Graphcore, once seen as an Nvidea competitor. The acquisition is likely to give Softbank’s invested companies a leg-up in AI applications involving robotics, biotechnology, and logistics. Softbank also invests in semiconductor manufacturer Arm.
