AI Chip Startup Groq Secures $750 Million, Valuation Soars to $6.9 Billion

AI Chip Startup Groq Raises $750 Million at $6.9 Billion Valuation

Artificial intelligence chip startup Groq Inc. raised $750 million at a post-funding valuation of $6.9 billion, highlighting investor interest in companies seeking to alleviate a shortage of chips and computing power for AI workloads. The round was led by Disruptive, with "significant investment" from Blackrock Inc., Neuberger Berman Group LLC and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, as well as existing investors including Samsung Electronics Co., Cisco Systems Inc., D1 and Altimeter. Participants also included a "large US-based West Coast mutual fund," Groq said in a statement.

Chip startup Groq raises $750 million at $6.9 billion valuation

Sept 17 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence chip startup Groq said on Wednesday it has raised $750 million in new financing at a post-money valuation of $6.9 billion. Groq, a Silicon Valley chip startup founded by a former Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab engineer, is among a long list of new chip players looking to capitalize on hundreds of millions of dollars in investments on AI hardware. The funding round was led by Disruptive with significant investment from Blackrock (BLK.N), opens new tab, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and a large U.S.-based West Coast mutual fund manager, Groq said. The round also included Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab, Cisco (CSCO.O), opens new tab, D1, Altimeter, 1789 Capital and Infinitum. "Inference is defining this era of AI, and we're building the American infrastructure that delivers it with high speed and low cost," Jonathan Ross, Groq Founder and CEO, said. In August last year, Groq raised $640 million in a Series D funding round led by Cisco Investments, Samsung Catalyst Fund and BlackRock Private Equity Partners, among others, which brought its valuation to $2.8 billion. Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

AI inference chip startup Groq nabs $750M at $6.9B valuation - SiliconANGLE

Groq Inc., a developer of artificial intelligence inference chips, today announced that it has raised $750 million in new funding. Databricks Inc. backer Disruptive led the round. It was joined by Cisco Systems Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and several investment firms. Groq is now valued at $6.9 million, up from $2.8 billion last year. Groq offers a processor called the Language Processing Unit, or LPU. The company claims that the chip can run some inference workloads with up to ten times higher energy efficiency than graphics cards. Groq says the LPU's efficiency is the fruit of several optimizations not included in rival chips. Coordinating the different processor components that are involved in running an AI model can consume a significant amount of computing power. According to Groq, its LPU reduces that overhead, which leaves more processing capacity for inference. The company says that its silicon can run models with 1 trillion parameters. Groq's LPU reduces the overhead associated with circuit coordination tasks using a custom compiler. The compiler calculates which circuit should perform what task before an inference workload launches, which removes the need to run the necessary calculations at runtime. Groq's compiler also optimizes AI models in other ways. Many chips use a technique called quantization to compress neural networks, which reduces their memory footprint at the expense of some output quality. Groq says that its compiler uses an improved version of the technique called RealScale. The technology only compresses the parts of a neural network that don't experience a significant decrease in output quality when they're quantized. Another selling point of the LPU is that it has a so-called deterministic architecture. As a result, it's possible to predict how much time each given computing operation will take with a granularity of individual clock cycles. According to Groq, the LPU's predictability facilitates performance optimizations that would otherwise be difficult to implement. The company sells its chips as part of an appliance called the GroqRack. The system includes nine servers that each hold multiple LPUs. Grok says that the GroqRack requires less external networking hardware than competing appliances, which lowers costs, and can be installed in data centers without major facility upgrades. The company also provides access to its chips via a cloud platform. GroqCloud, as the platform is called, hosts LPU-powered AI models that developers can integrate into their software via an application programming interface. Groq will use its new funding to expand the data center network that powers GroqCloud.

Groq more than doubles valuation to $6.9 billion as investors bet on AI chips - The Economic Times

Chip startup Groq said on Wednesday it has raised $750 million, more than doubling its valuation to $6.9 billion in just over a year as Wall Street bets big on the hardware that powers artificial intelligence technology. Groq, founded by a former Alphabet engineer, is among a long list of new chip players looking to capitalise on hundreds of millions of dollars in investments on AI infrastructure. Its last funding round was in August last year, when it raised $640 million that brought its valuation to $2.8 billion. The round announced on Wednesday was led by Disruptive, with significant investments from Blackrock, Neuberger Berman, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and a large US-based West Coast mutual fund manager, Groq said. Disruptive, a Dallas-based growth investment firm that has backed companies such as Palantir and Spotify, has invested nearly $350 million in Groq, the startup said. The round also included Samsung, Cisco, D1, Altimeter, 1789 Capital and Infinitum. Groq is known for producing AI inference chips that optimize pre-trained models. The industry is increasingly shifting focus to hardware designed for inference, from the training-centric chips that characterized the early period of AI development. Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia, as well as smaller rival AMD, are both gearing up to offer more inference focused chips. "Inference is defining this era of AI, and we're building the American infrastructure that delivers it with high speed and low cost," Jonathan Ross, Groq founder and CEO, said. Groq also secured a $1.5 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia in February to expand the delivery of its advanced AI chips to the country. The startup has told investors that the contracts in Saudi Arabia will help bring in about $500 million in revenue this year, according to earlier media reports.