Lisa Su, CEO, AMD
Scott Mlyn | CNBC
AMD introduced Tuesday it’s going to purchase Nod.AI, an open-source AI software program startup, with the intention to increase the chipmaker’s AI software program operations.
Nod.AI, or Nod Labs, builds open-source applied sciences “for future AI methods,” in line with the startup, and it primarily focuses on reinforcement studying, a sort of system that “learns” by way of trial and error.
The acquisition is a part of AMD’s “AI progress technique” that it hopes will higher shore up its competitors in opposition to rival chipmaker Nvidia, which noticed its income spike greater than 100% yr over yr for the quarter ended July 30, 2023. Throughout the identical time interval, AMD reported a income decline of 18% however nonetheless beat analysts’ estimates for gross sales and revenue.
“The acquisition of Nod.ai is predicted to considerably improve our potential to offer AI prospects with open software program that permits them to simply deploy extremely performant AI fashions tuned for AMD {hardware},” Vamsi Boppana, SVP of AMD’s AI group, mentioned in a launch.
Previous to founding Nod in 2013, Anush Elangovan, the startup’s CEO, was a part of the primary Chromebooks crew at Google and a lead engineer at Cisco. Harsh Menon, Nod’s co-founder and CTO, beforehand labored at Kitty Hawk, the electrical plane firm backed by Google co-founder Larry Web page, which shut down in 2022.
Nod Labs was initially billed as an AI {hardware} firm specializing in gesture recognition and motion-tracking wearables, reminiscent of Bluetooth-connected rings to be used in gaming. (Suppose: Making a real-life hand gesture utilizing your thumb and forefinger to shoot a gun in a digital actuality sport.) The startup raised thousands and thousands in funding from VC corporations like Menlo Ventures and Sequoia Capital, and crew members reportedly hailed from Apple, Google, Samsung and extra.
AMD and Nod.AI didn’t reply to requests for remark.
