Amazon's (AMZN, Financial) founder Jeff Bezos and Samsung have invested $700 million in Tenstorrent, an AI chip startup aiming to challenge Nvidia's (NVDA) dominance. This investment values Tenstorrent at approximately $2.6 billion. The company, led by semiconductor pioneer Jim Keller, plans to develop affordable AI chips that avoid costly components like high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used by Nvidia.
The funding, led by AFW Partners and Samsung Securities, will help Tenstorrent expand its engineering team, invest in its global supply chain, and build AI training servers. The startup supports an alternative processor based on open-standard RISC-V, challenging Arm Holdings (ARM).
Keller, known for his work at Apple, Tesla, and AMD, emphasizes open-source technology to build a larger platform and attract engineers. Tenstorrent has secured contracts worth nearly $150 million, with plans to release new AI processors every two years, while Nvidia updates its AI chips annually.
