NVIDIA announced that it will pay the equivalent of US$20 billion to be able to use technologies from the startup Groq, also specialized in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The value is much higher than the US$7 billion that the GeForce owner invested in Mellanox in 2019, marking a new record for the company.
Groq specializes in a product the company calls LPU – Language Processing Units. They are basically ASICs, which the company says are much more efficient and cost-effective than GPUs, NVIDIA’s focus. The startup targets customers looking to run inference at scale.
NVIDIA’s investment is not an acquisition per se. The company may use Groq’s IPs at will, but not exclusively. The startup continues to operate independently. However, the value also covers the hiring of employees, which even includes the CEO.
“We plan to integrate Groq’s low-latency processors into NVIDIA’s AI factory architecture, extending the platform to serve an even broader range of AI inference in real-time workloads,” said Jensen Huang, CEO and founder of NVIDIA.
NVIDIA investment is strategic
In September of this year, Groq was valued at US$6.9 billion, which means that NVIDIA invested basically three times the company’s value to just use its technologies, instead of buying the startup outright.
But the investment includes bringing the company’s CEO and founder Jonathan Ross to NVIDIA, along with president Sunny Madra, as well as other employees. The owner of GeForce, effectively, “pinched” the main talents of a company that could become a promising rival.
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Previously, Groq has accused NVIDIA of predatory market practices, alleging that the company pressures customers not to negotiate with competitors, under threat of not guaranteeing GPU inventory.
The type of contract signed between the two companies is often seen as a way to avoid headaches with regulatory agencies, while the larger company maintains its dominance.
Via: Tom’s Hardware
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Source: https://www.adrenaline.com.br/nvidia/nvidia-investe-us-20-bilhoes-por-tecnologias-da-startup-groq-seu-maior-contrato-ate-hoje/
