Bristol?And here we are. From Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance:
From HPCwire:
November 1, 2016Graphcore emerged from stealth mode today with news of a $30 million Series A round to help finance ongoing development of its machine learning (ML) and deep learning acceleration solutions, including a PCIe card that plugs directly into a server’s bus....
A U.K. startup that designs semiconductors used for artificial intelligence applications has raised $200 million from investors including BMW AG and Microsoft Corp.
Graphcore Ltd. is one of a number of companies trying to design a new class of chips that will be better at crunching the vast amount of data needed to make computers smarter. They argue that the processors that have defined the PC age -- made by Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. -- are not suited for this task, and more tailored solutions are needed to achieve the kind of speed up required.
The funding round was led by U.K. venture capital firm Atomico, and valued Graphcore at $1.7 billion, the company said Tuesday. Existing investors Dell Technologies Inc. and Robert Bosch Venture Capital also participated in the round.The billion-dollar-plus valuation for the chip company comes at a time when the semiconductor industry is suffering from investor skepticism, but AI is getting increased attention. The U.K. company’s chips are specifically designed to accelerate machine learning -- the process by which predictive computer algorithms improve from digesting large amounts of data. Graphcore designs chips for power-intensive tasks such AI in cloud computing, enterprise services and automotive systems.Graphcore, headquartered in Bristol, England, will also be opening up new offices in Beijing and in Hsinchu, Taiwan. With plans to eventually IPO, it is currently rolling out its first run of chips and is working on its next product. Initial clients include Dell and Samsung Electronics Co., said Graphcore co-founder Nigel Toon. The company is targeting $50 million in revenue in 2019.Graphcore’s technology "is well-suited for a wide variety of applications from intelligent voice assistants to self-driving vehicles,” Tobias Jahn, principal at BMW i Ventures, said in a statement.
Last year the company raised $50 million from investors including U.S. venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. Previous investors include AI luminaries Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Arm Holdings Plc, and Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google’s DeepMind....
If interested see also:
Nov. 2017
May 2018Top 10 British Artificial Intelligence Startups
The GOOG was the "lab in Shenzhen": AI: "Google moves into Shenzhen in latest China expansion" (GOOG; NVDA)
I am not at liberty to discuss the basement in Moscow.
