Nvidia has agreed to license chip know-how from startup Groq and rent away its CEO, a veteran of Alphabet’s Google, Groq mentioned in a weblog publish on Wednesday.
Groq focuses on what is called inference, the place synthetic intelligence fashions which have already been educated reply to requests from customers.
Whereas Nvidia dominates the marketplace for coaching AI fashions, it faces way more competitors in inference, the place conventional rivals comparable to Superior Micro Units have aimed to problem it in addition to startups comparable to Groq and Cerebras Techniques.
Groq mentioned that Nvidia had agreed to a “non-exclusive” license to Groq’s know-how. Groq mentioned that its founder Jonathan Ross, who helped Google begin its AI chip program, in addition to Groq President Sunny Madra and different members of its engineering staff will be a part of Nvidia.
An individual near Nvidia confirmed the licensing settlement.
Groq didn’t disclose monetary particulars of the deal. CNBC earlier reported that Nvidia had agreed to amass Groq for $20 billion in money, however neither Nvidia nor Groq commented on the report. Groq mentioned in its weblog publish that it’ll proceed to function as an unbiased firm with Simon Edwards as CEO and that its cloud enterprise will proceed working.
Groq greater than doubled its valuation to $6.9 billion, from $2.8 billion in August final 12 months, following a $750 million funding spherical in September.
Groq is certainly one of quite a lot of upstarts that don’t use exterior high-bandwidth reminiscence chips, which free them from the reminiscence crunch affecting the worldwide chip trade. The strategy, which makes use of a type of on-chip reminiscence known as SRAM, helps velocity up interactions with chatbots and different AI fashions but additionally limits the dimensions of the mannequin that may be served.
Groq’s major rival within the strategy is Cerebras Techniques, which Reuters earlier this month reported plans to go public as quickly as subsequent 12 months. Each Groq and Cerebras have signed giant offers within the Center East.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spent a lot of his greatest keynote speech of 2025 arguing that Nvidia would be capable of preserve its lead as AI markets shift from coaching to inference.
