Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com Inc., has teamed up with Samsung in a $700 million investment in Tenstorrent, an AI chip startup looking to challenge Nvidia Corp. This deal values Tenstorrent at around $2.6 billion.
Tenstorrent, led by semiconductor pioneer Jim Keller, aims to develop a chip that can compete with Nvidia in the AI industry. The funding round was supported by South Korea’s AFW Partners and Samsung Securities, with investments from Bezos Expeditions, LG Electronics Inc., and Fidelity. These investors are betting on Keller’s expertise and the growing potential of artificial intelligence technology.
The capital raised will be used to expand Tenstorrent’s engineering team, enhance its global supply chain, and create large artificial intelligence training servers to showcase its technology.
As demand for more powerful and cost-effective AI solutions rises, smaller companies are emerging to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the market. Tenstorrent, located in Santa Clara, California, is one of these companies developing solutions that offer a more affordable approach to AI development by utilizing open-source and widely available technology.
Keller explained, “You can’t compete with Nvidia using HBM, as they have a cost advantage due to their high usage of this technology. We are focused on providing a more cost-effective alternative for AI development.”
While Nvidia offers a suite of proprietary technology for developers, Tenstorrent and other companies like AMD are prioritizing interoperability with industry standards and open design principles. Tenstorrent is embracing RISC-V, an open standard logic processor, as an alternative to Arm Holdings Plc.
Tenstorrent, though still in the early stages, has already secured contracts worth nearly $150 million. The company plans to release a new AI processor every two years, in contrast to Nvidia’s annual chip refresh cycle.
In addition to AFW Partners, other investors in this funding round include Export Development Canada, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, LG, Hyundai Motor Group, and Baillie Gifford. Tenstorrent’s chips are currently manufactured by GlobalFoundries Inc., with plans to work with TSMC and Samsung Electronics Co. for future iterations.
Tenstorrent is also exploring cutting-edge 2-nanometer fabrication for its upcoming processors. The company is in discussions with TSMC, Samsung, and Rapidus regarding the production of these chips.
For more information on the 100 Most Powerful People in Business and the metrics used to determine this list, click here.
