Albert Liu, founder and CEO of Kneron.
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Kneron, a U.S.-based semiconductor startup, said on Tuesday it raised a fresh round of funding because it looks to ramp up the commercialization of its artificial intelligence chips, which it hopes will rival Nvidia’s.
The corporate said it raised an extra $49 million, bringing its total round of funding to to $97 million.
Taiwanese giant Foxconn, the corporate that assembles Apple’s iPhones, and Alltek, a communications tech company, were among the many investors within the round.
Kneron is seeking to capitalize on massive investor interest in artificial intelligence and the chip technology that underpins it — underscored by Nvidia’s 180% rally this yr and the initial public offering of semiconductor designer Arm within the U.S. last week.
Nvidia makes graphics processing units, or GPUs, which run in servers and data centers and may handle the large computing power required to make use of huge amounts of information to coach artificial intelligence systems. Many AI services today, similar to ChatGPT, are run from the cloud.
In contrast, Kneron designs a chipset that goes into devices like consumer electronics and cars that allow AI on the “edge.” Which means AI runs on a tool quite than within the cloud. Advocates say this is healthier for security and speed because the AI application doesn’t need to return from the cloud.
Kneron calls its semiconductors neural processing units, or NPUs. Its latest product is known as the KL730. This chip is designed for cars and the corporate says that it will probably be used to support autonomous driving.
Albert Liu, CEO of Kneron, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” that GPUs are expensive to run which could help demand for its NPUs.
“So that may force people to change into the more low price (NPUs),” Liu said.
“With this tranche in funding, Kneron is specifically focused on expanding its efforts in enabling AI to make autonomous driving a reality,” Kneron said in a press release.
Kneron has no shortage of competitors from giants like Qualcomm and MediaTek — that are aiming for on-device AI with their chips — and startups developing AI semiconductors.
Foxconn’s semiconductor push
Kneron has managed to get some high-profile backers on board. Foxconn is considered one of the more interesting ones, given its push to diversify away from just assembling electronics just like the iPhone into areas similar to electric cars and semiconductors.
As a part of Foxconn’s investment in Kneron, the 2 corporations will “speed up the deployment of advanced AI” for automotive and other areas. They’ll develop “an ultra-lightweight AI chip that operates” so-called generative pre-trained, or GPT, models from the cloud. GPT models underpin AI applications like ChatGPT.
But Foxconn’s foray into semiconductors to date has been rocky. Last yr, it agreed with Indian metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta to establish a semiconductor and display production plant in India as a part of a $19.5 billion three way partnership. But Foxconn pulled out of that enterprise earlier this yr, underscoring the difficulties of cracking the microchip market.
Manufacturing diversifcation
Kneron’s chips are manufactured by TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer.
Nonetheless, TSMC and semiconductors more broadly have been caught within the geopolitical battle between the U.S. and China. There are continued fears that China could invade Taiwan, where TSMC is headquartered, which could cut the world off from supplies of the corporate’s semiconductors.
To mitigate the danger, Liu said that from next yr, Kneron could have a more distributed production footprint within the U.S. and Europe “to de-risk.”