Nvidia has announced a groundbreaking agreement with AI startup Groq, marking a significant shift in the AI hardware landscape. Valued at $20 billion, this non-exclusive licensing deal allows Nvidia to utilize Groq’s intellectual property, along with acquiring key personnel from the company. This surpasses Nvidia's previous record of $7 billion spent on Mellanox in 2019.
Groq, known for its advanced Language Processing Units (LPUs), aims to provide a more efficient alternative to traditional GPUs. These custom-designed Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are particularly effective for large-scale inference tasks, an area where Groq claims to have a competitive edge, especially in high-volume markets.
As part of the agreement, Groq's CEO Jonathan Ross and president Sunny Madra, alongside other team members, will join Nvidia. This collaboration is aimed at integrating Groq's low-latency processors into Nvidia's AI architecture, broadening its capabilities for real-time workloads, according to statements from Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang.