Engineers from one of Google's most secretive projects defecting to mystery AI start-up
Last year, Google unveiled its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) – a chip designed to improve machine learning and artificial intelligence. But Larry Page, founder of Google, may not be pleased with the project, as several engineers have left to join a secretive AI startup.
The firm, Groq, has remained elusive on its work, but it appears to be working on a rival TPU chip. Groq was started by Chamath Palihapitiya, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture investors. So far, there is no website or promotional materials, but filings from last year show that the firm has already raised $10.3 million.
Palihapitiya said: "We're really excited about Groq. It's too early to talk specifics, but we think what they're building could become a fundamental building block for the next generation of computing."
In its filing, Groq names three principals – Jonathan Ross, inventor of the TPU, Douglas Wightman, a former Google engineer, and Palihapitiya himself.
Palihapitiya invested in the team of ex-Googlers last year, and he now hopes to build a 'next-generation chip,' taking on some of the world's biggest firms, including Intel and Qualcomm. Groq hopes that its work 'can empower companies like Facebook and Amazon, Tesla, the government to do things with machine learning and computers that nobody could do before,' according to Palihapitiya. The key to creating the chip is to squeeze heavy and highly sophisticated computation into less silicon – something Google's TPU is one step ahead of its competition with.