Chip legend Jim Keller’s Tenstorrent raises $1.5B to expand its open compute ecosystem
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Artificial intelligence computing hardware startup Tenstorrent Inc. is pushing hard to position itself as an alternative to Nvidia Corp.'s graphics processing units after raising a massive $1.5 billion in a late-stage funding round today. The Series E round was jointly led by Trace Capital and Innovation X and saw participation from new and existing backers including Protagonist, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Management & Research Co., ARK Invest and T. Rowe Price. It brings the startup's valuation to $6.2 billion. Toronto-based Tenstorrent is led by its Chief Executive Jim Keller (pictured), who is widely regarded as a legend in the semiconductor industry, having previously helped to design a number of groundbreaking processors for the likes of Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc. The startup originally set out as a chip designer but quickly pivoted to offer more than just the bare silicon. Today, it sells a complete portfolio of AI compute platforms, ranging from its Galaxy servers, TT-QuietBox workstations and its Blackhole cards for laptops. Those platforms are powered by its specialized Tensix Neo accelerators and its Ascalon central processing units, which are both based on the open-standard RISC-V instruction set. They're designed to be extremely scalable and energy-efficient, capable of producing top-tier performance for AI workloads...
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