Hyundai Motor Company and Kia announced on the 3rd that they recently invested US$50 million in Toronto-based artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor startup Tensorrent.
This is equivalent to 50% of Tenstorent’s recent investment of $100 million, with Hyundai Motors investing 30 million and Kia investing $20 million, respectively.
Jim Keller, who is called a ‘legend’ in the field of semiconductor design, is the CEO of Tenstorrent. It started as a fabless start-up specializing in semiconductor design, and since its establishment in 2016, it has held many AI-related intellectual property rights developed in-house.
Neural network processing unit (NPU) technology, which is essential for commercialization of autonomous driving technology, is a typical example.
Self-driving cars must interpret and judge numerous situations on the road by themselves, and for this, semiconductor technology that processes data in the order of input is required. This is different from the central processing unit (CPU). While CPUs are specialized in quickly processing serial operations, NPUs perform parallel operations that process multiple data at the same time and focus on cognitive and judgmental functions like the human brain.
CEO Keller led the design of high-performance semiconductors such as ‘A-Chip’ used in Apple’s iPhone and ‘Ryzen’, an AMD PC CPU, and led the design of self-driving semiconductors in Tesla, an electric car.
CEO Keller said, “I have been deeply impressed with Hyundai Motor Group, which has risen to become the world’s third-largest automaker by actively embracing cutting-edge technology.” he said.