Graphcore, the chipmaking startup that when counted Microsoft amongst its prospects, could battle to remain afloat except it pulls in tens of millions of {dollars} in financing inside the subsequent few months, based on its newest accounts.
Though the explosion of the AI trade means chips are in high-demand, Graphcore hasn’t been in a position to capitalize on this. The UK-based unicorn was as soon as thought of a key rival to the likes of Nvidia and AMD, having achieved a valuation of $2.5 billion in 2020 following its newest funding spherical. However as a consequence of decrease gross sales from “key strategic prospects”, revenues have fallen, based on Sifted.
To underline its woes, the corporate as soon as agreed to a cope with Microsoft, itself an investor within the firm, this ultimately fell by way of when the agency determined to not proceed utilizing Graphcore’s chips in its cloud computing methods.
May OpenAI be Graphcore’s savior and shake up the market?
The corporate has lower than a 12 months now to lift capital to proceed functioning as a wholesome enterprise, based on the Monetary Instances (FT), and is searching for one other funding spherical, with discussions underway with potential traders.
In gentle of the AI emergence, and with the chips market actually hotting up OpenAI is rumured to be searching for to make its personal AI chips, moderately than run on the likes of Nvidia’s A100 GPUs to energy its generative AI platforms like ChatGPT.
OpenAI has gone as far as to determine potential acquisition targets, reported Reuters, however hasn’t but determined to maneuver ahead on any explicit plan of action. The primary motive is that with chips in excessive demand, and solely a handful at present mass-producing the parts required to energy AI workloads and LLMs, there’s a scarcity.
The $100 million Silicon Valley big has additionally thought of constructing its personal chip, working intently with different chipmakers – equivalent to Nvidia – in addition to diversifying its provide past simply Nvidia, which is the trade chief. The GPU maker has an 80% stranglehold in the marketplace proper now, though challengers are starting to emerge, and progressive options are within the works.
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Ought to OpenAI determine to put money into a chipmaking agency to construct its personal powerhouse to both assure a provide or crack open the market, it needn’t look additional than Graphcore. There’s no assure it’ll, however maybe an early funding could also be on the playing cards as a primary step into one thing that might probably develop right into a a lot larger partnership.
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