Will Qualcom or Intel help world's largest chip startup take flight?
AI IP/system companyTenstorrent (TT) is drawing takeover interest from Intel and Qualcomm according to people familiar with the matter, according to Bloomberg. The startup has been speaking to investment banks about evaluating its options.
I have a weak corroborating indicator supporting this.
As for Intel, TT has a lot of ex-Intel personnel. TT isn't backed by LBT, in contrast with SambaNova, which Intel recently invested in, which could diminish TT's appeal to the processor behemoth. Having acquired Nervana (oops), taking a mulligan and buying Habana (which it later killed), developing data center GPUs, and now rebooting the DC GPU operation, Intel has shown it's unafraid to spend liberally on data-center AI tech. In an interesting coincidence, Habana scaled systems by linking multiple Gaudi processors using point-to-point Ethernet--the same approach TT takes.
Qualcomm isn't yet realizing its data-center ambitions, despite having AI technology. TT would boost its profile.
Now that Meta appears on track with MTIA (which has a vaguely similar architecture as TT), Microsoft (Azure) might be the best fit. Its Maia program hasn't pulled itself together as MTIA has. The experience, however, gives Microsoft knowledge to evaluate alternatives.
Note that TT's Blackhole isn't yet wholly proven technology, although it has systems running at a few data centers. Unlike other startups that focus on getting a minimal viable product to market, TensTorrent is developing IP, chips, systems, and software. Its big open-source stack adds business complexity and risk but reflects the reality that winning processors have robust software ecosystems.
