AMD Deepens AI Inference Bet with Taalas Deal as Chip Race Heats Up
AMD said Taalas will strengthen its AI inference portfolio with specialized silicon that reduces compute and memory bottlenecks, but it did not disclose the price.
- On Thursday, Advanced Micro Devices announced it agreed to acquire Toronto-based Taalas, an AI chip startup that hard-wires models directly onto custom silicon for inference workloads, though financial terms remain undisclosed.
- As the industry shifts from training AI models to deploying them at scale, specialized inference chips have become critical for reducing computing costs and memory bottlenecks that general-purpose architectures create.
- Taalas claims its customized accelerators produce output thousands of times faster than traditional GPUs and can realize new chips in just two months, currently running Meta's Llama 3.1 model using TSMC manufacturing with speedy SRAM memory.
- AMD plans to integrate Taalas technology into its accelerator roadmap and system-level solutions using Instinct GPUs, with Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AMD's Artificial Intelligence Group, saying the move delivers "differentiated inference performance and efficiency."
- The acquisition marks AMD's second Canadian AI chip purchase in over a year following Untether AI, as four of Toronto's most promising startups have been acquired by major U.S. players amid intense competition—highlighted by Nvidia's $20 billion Groq deal seven months prior.
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AMD has decided to acquire the Canadian startup Taalas. Taalas is a company attracting attention for its chip design method that embeds a specific artificial intelligence (AI) model directly into the semiconductor circuit. This unique design approach of etching AI models into silicon is expected to provide a "shortcut" to the data bottlenecks that are a chronic problem in AI infrastructure. Based on this acquisition, AMD...
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jung Joo-ho = U.S. semiconductor company AMD has acquired Taalas, a Canadian startup that manufactures semiconductors for artificial intelligence (AI) inference...
AMD deepens AI inference bet with Taalas deal as chip race heats up
US chip giant AMD to acquire Taalas
American semiconductor giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced today that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based Taalas, which aims to hardwire AI models directly onto the chips that power them. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction remains subject to closing conditions and regulatory approval. “Joining AMD will give us the scale, engineering resources, and global reach to accelerate ou…
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