Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Graphcore, the AI chipmaker, raises another $150M at a $1.95B valuation

The UK has a strong history when it comes to processors, but the global chip market has seen some ups and downs of late. Today comes some big news that underscores how investors are doubling down on one of the big hopefuls for the next generation of chipmaking to see it through any possible winter winds. Graphcore, the Bristol-based startup that designs processors specifically for artificial intelligence applications, announced that it has raised another $150 million in funding for R&D and to continue bringing on new customers. It’s valuation is now $1.95 billion.

Graphcore has now raised over $450 million and says that it has some $300 million in cash reserves — an important detail considering the doldrums that have plagued the chipmaking market in the last few months, and could become exacerbated now with the slowdown in production due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The funding is an extension of its Series D, it said, and brings the total valuation of the company to $1.95 billion. (For reference, the original Series D in December 2018 valued Graphcore at $1.7 billion.) This latest round includes investments from Baillie Gifford, Mayfair Equity Partners and M&G Investments — all new backers — as well as participation from previous investors Merian Chrysalis, Ahren Innovation Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and Sofina. Other past backers of the startup include BMW, Microsoft, Atomico and Demis Hassabis of DeepMind.

Graphcore’s big claim to fame has been the development of what it calls its Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) hardware and corresponding Poplar software — which are designed specifically for the kind of simultaneous, intensive calculations demanded of AI applications innovators create next generation machine intelligence solutions (which are designed based on how humans think, in “parallel” processing mode).

Graphcore describes its IPU as the first processor to be designed specifically for AI, although a number of other companies including Nvidia, Intel and AMD have made huge investments into this area and have ramped up their pace of development to meet market demands and hopefully overtake what have been limitations in the wider area of AI processing, a problem that still continues to persist and all these chipmakers continue to work on.

“Deep learning has only really existed in since 2012,” Nigel Toon, founder and CEO, said recently to TechCrunch. “When we started Graphcore, what we heard from innovators was that hardware was holding them back.”

This D2 round comes ahead of what it describes as strong demand for 2020, and is happening on the heels of a strong year for Graphcore, the company said, including a commercial deal with one of its previous strategic backers.

“2019 was a transformative year for Graphcore as we moved from development to a full commercial business with volume production products shipping,” said Nigel Toon, founder and CEO. “We were pleased to publicly announce our close partnership with Microsoft in November 2019, jointly announcing IPU availability for external customers on the Azure Cloud, as well as for use by Microsoft internal AI initiatives. In addition, we announced availability of the DSS8440 IPU Server in partnership with Dell Technologies and the launch of the Cirrascale IPU-Bare Metal Cloud. We also announced some of our other early access customers which include Citadel Securities, Carmot Capital, and Qwant, the European search engine company.”

See Toon speaking at our recent Disrupt conference in Berlin about the prospect for chips here:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line...
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...
3 comments
Read more