Reported 9 months ago
Two years after dropping out of Harvard, students founded the startup Etched, which successfully raised $120 million and aims to have Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produce more affordable artificial intelligence (AI) chips. Etched is challenging Nvidia's leading position. The company's funding round was led by Primary Venture Partners and Positive Sum Ventures, with investors including legendary figures such as Stanley Druckenmiller and notable tech investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Etched is developing a chip named Sohu, utilizing the 'Transformer' for training and deploying AI models, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT core architecture. Despite not being as powerful as Nvidia's general-purpose GPU, Sohu is faster on dedicated tasks by over 10 times, with lower costs and energy consumption. Etched believes that one Sohu server can replace 160 H100 GPUs, providing a more cost-effective, efficient, and environmentally friendly option for businesses in need of custom chips. The company's operational director expressed excitement about their endeavors, emphasizing why they chose to drop out and attract talented individuals.
Source: YAHOO