Intel Corp. is reportedly in talks to acquire SambaNova Systems Inc., a venture-backed developer of artificial intelligence chips.<\/p>\n
Bloomberg today cited<\/a> sources as saying that the discussions are in an advanced stage. It\u2019s believed that an acquisition could value SambaNova at $1.6 billion including debt. If it materializes, the deal would mark Intel\u2019s first major startup purchase under Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan, who joined the company in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n Palo Alto, California-based SambaNova sells an AI chip called the SN40L. It\u2019s optimized for inference, or the task of running AI models in production after they\u2019re trained. One of the chip\u2019s main selling points is its power efficiency: SambaNova claims<\/a> that it can generate more tokens per kilowatt hour than comparable processors from rivals.<\/p>\n The process through which an AI model answers a user prompt comprises numerous steps. After completing a step, the model saves its calculation results to memory and then moves them from memory to its host chip\u2019s cores so that the next step may begin. That data movement accounts for a significant percentage of AI chips\u2019 power consumption.<\/p>\n According to SambaNova, the SN40L significantly lowers data movement. It achieves that partly by compressing multiple inference-related calculations into a single operation, which reduces the number of memory round-trips necessary to process data. SN40L keeps data in three types of memory: high-speed SRAM, HBM and DRAM.<\/p>\n The company says that its chip also provides other benefits. The SN40L\u2019s use of three memory varieties enables it to quickly load an AI model when users enter a prompt, which reduces wait times. Additionally, it claims, the chip can rapidly switch between different AI models when necessary.<\/p>\n SambaNova ships the SN40L as part of an appliance called the SambaRack that includes 16 chips. It runs a custom software toolkit, the SambaStack, that supports popular open-source large language models. It also provides access to its chips through a cloud service that doesn\u2019t require customers to manage any hardware.<\/p>\n In 2018, SambaNova raised a $56 million funding round led by Walden International, Lip-Bu Tan\u2019s venture capital firm. Tan is the chip startup\u2019s executive chair. SambaNova later raised a $676 million round led by SoftBank Group Corp. that gave it a $5 billion valuation.<\/p>\n According to today\u2019s report, Intel could close the acquisition as early as next month. However, Bloomberg\u2019s sources cautioned that the timing of the deal may change. Furthermore, there\u2019s reportedly a possibility SambaNova will opt against a sale to Intel. The company is believed to have signed terms sheets with multiple potential investors.<\/p>\n The report comes two months after Intel previewed<\/a> an upcoming series of graphics processing units called Crescent Lake. Like SN40L, it\u2019s optimized for data center inference and places an emphasis on power efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photo: Intel<\/a><\/p>\n Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE\u2019s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.<\/p>\n 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more About SiliconANGLE Media<\/p>\n SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE<\/a>, theCUBE Network<\/a>, theCUBE Research<\/a>, CUBE365<\/a>, theCUBE AI<\/a> and theCUBE SuperStudios \u2014 with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange \u2014 SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.<\/p>\n Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Intel Corp. is reportedly in talks to acquire SambaNova Systems Inc., a venture-backed developer of artificial intelligence chips.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,47221,106094,9662,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-182356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-maria-deutscher","14":"tag-report-intel-could-acquire-inference-chip-startup-sambanova-for-1-6b","15":"tag-siliconangle","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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