According to reports, a semiconductor research consortium supported by the Japanese government is collaborating with the U.S. startup Tenstorrent Inc. to design its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, with the help of legendary figure and "chip guru" Jim Keller.
Tenstorrent has announced it has been licensed to design part of Japan's AI accelerator and will co-design the entire chip with the consortium.
The company aims to adopt the open-source RISC-V standard, offering customers an alternative to products from NVIDIA and Arm, both of which have their own instruction sets for hardware-software communication.
Reportedly, the Japanese government is funding a series of projects from research to advanced chip manufacturing, investing a whopping $67 billion to reclaim its core position in the semiconductor industry. The collaboration with Tenstorrent is expected to bolster these efforts, with the consortium's support of the government-backed startup Rapidus Corp. set to manufacture jointly designed AI chips.
Rapidus, established 18 months ago, plans to commence chip production in 2027, competing with major players like TSMC and Samsung Electronics Co. However, the company currently lacks clients.
The Influx of "Chip Guru"
Jim Keller, a legend in the semiconductor industry and a true icon in Silicon Valley, boasts an impressive track record across various tech giants, earning him a spot in history books.
To put it simply, he's the mind behind Apple's A-series chips, the architect of AMD's "Zen" microarchitecture, and the creator of Tesla's autonomous driving chips. Though he has only been in the industry for over 30 years, his influence spans across major companies in Silicon Valley, leading the design and development of several generations of different processors.
After resigning from Intel in June 2020, Keller joined the AI chip startup Tenstorrent as its Chief Technology Officer, later assuming the role of CEO in January 2023.
Apart from Keller, Tenstorrent boasts Keith Witek, who spent 13 years at AMD, as its Chief Operating Officer, and Wei-han Lien as its Chief Chip Architect. Lien led Apple's efforts in advancing its in-house chip designs, which have been integrated from iPhones to iPads and even Mac computers.
In Japan, Tenstorrent is reportedly collaborating with the government research group "Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center" (LSTC) to design AI chips.
However, manufacturing in Japan might pose a challenge, as Rapidus aims to produce the most advanced 2-nanometer logic chips by 2027, a goal considered ambitious.
Tetsuro Higashi, chairman of Japan's LSTC, stated in a declaration that LSTC aims to pursue and promote AI technology dedicated to "edge inference processing applications, including generative artificial intelligence," through international cooperation. He noted that the country has managed to attract many semiconductor experts working overseas as it strives to strengthen its expertise.
