Nvidia signs licensing deal with AI rival Groq, hires founder Jonathan Ross

Nvidia has confirmed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Groq, a rival in the AI chip market. The deal includes Nvidia hiring key personnel from Groq, specifically founder Jonathan Ross and president Sunny Madra, along with other employees.

CNBC reported that Nvidia is acquiring Groq’s assets for $20 billion, which, if confirmed, would represent Nvidia’s largest purchase to date. However, Nvidia informed TechCrunch that this is not an acquisition of the entire company, though they declined to elaborate on the deal’s full scope.

Regardless of the specific structure, bringing Groq’s assets under its umbrella is expected to significantly strengthen Nvidia’s already dominant position in chip manufacturing.

As technology companies strive to enhance their AI capabilities, they require massive computing power. Currently, Nvidia’s GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) set the industry standard.

However, Groq is developing a different type of chip known as a Language Processing Unit (LPU).

Groq claims that this chip can run large language models (LLMs) 10 times faster while consuming only one-tenth of the energy compared to traditional solutions.

Groq’s CEO, Jonathan Ross, is recognized for his innovative approach to hardware. During his time at Google, he co-invented the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a specialized AI accelerator chip.

In September, Groq raised $750 million at a $6.9 billion valuation. The company has seen explosive growth, stating that it now powers the AI apps of more than 2 million developers, up from about 356,000 last year.