AI chip startup Groq discusses $6 billion valuation, The Information reports
The company is seeking the cash to fulfill a recently inked deal with Saudi Arabia, the report said.
In February, Groq secured a $1.5 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to expand the delivery of its advanced artificial intelligence chips to the country.
Groq has told investors that the contracts in Saudi Arabia will help the company bring in about $500 million in revenue this year, the report added.
Groq did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
In August last year, Groq raised $640 million in a Series D funding round led by Cisco Investments, Samsung Catalyst Fund and BlackRock Private Equity Partners, among others, which brought its valuation to $2.8 billion.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
China proposes global AI body, urges chip supply and talent flow boost
Chinese Premier Li Qiang has proposed establishing a world artificial intelligence cooperation organisation to coordinate governance of the fast-developing technology. Speaking at the opening of the World AI Conference on Saturday (Jul 26), he also called for removing barriers to clip supply and talent exchange. CNA's Tan Yew Guan has more from Shanghai.
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Samsung Elec signs chip supply deal with Tesla, sources say
SEOUL :Samsung Electronics has signed a deal to supply chips to Tesla Inc, two people briefed about the matter told Reuters on Monday, in a significant boost to the South Korean tech giant's loss-making contract manufacturing business. On Saturday, Samsung announced a $16.5 billion chip supply deal with a major global company, without naming the client. It said the customer had requested confidentiality about the details of the deal, which will run through the end of 2033. The deal comes as Samsung faces mounting pressure in the race to produce artificial intelligence chips, where it trails rivals such as TSMC and SK Hynix. This lag has weighed heavily on its profits and share price. Samsung, the world's top memory chip maker, also makes logic chips designed by customers through its foundry business. Pak Yuak, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said the latest deal would help reduce losses at Samsung's foundry business, which he estimated exceeded more than 5 trillion won ($3.63 billion) in the first half of the year. Analysts say Samsung had struggled with the defection of key clients to TSMC for advanced chips. TSMC counts Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm among its customers. The deal with Tesla comes as South Korea is seeking U.S. partnerships in chips and shipbuilding amid last-ditch efforts to reach a trade deal to eliminate or cut potential 25 per cent U.S. tariffs. It is not clear how the order would affect Samsung's plan to start production at its new factory in Texas, which has been delayed as it had struggled to win major customers. Samsung is grappling to boost production yields of its latest 2-nanometer technology, and the order is unlikely to involve the cutting-edge tech, Lee Min-hee, an analyst at BNK Investment & Securities, said. Samsung has been losing market share to TSMC in contract manufacturing, underscoring technological challenges the firm faces in mastering advanced chip manufacturing to attract clients like Apple and Nvidia, analysts said.
Business Times
2 hours ago
- Business Times
Alibaba cloud visionary expects big shakeup after OpenAI hype
[HONG KONG] OpenAI's ChatGPT started a revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) development and investment. Yet nine-tenths of the technology and services that have sprung up since could be gone in under a decade, according to the founder of Alibaba Group Holding's cloud and AI unit. The problem is the US startup, celebrated for ushering AI into the mainstream, created 'bias' or a skewed understanding of what AI can do, Wang Jian told Bloomberg Television. It fired the popular imagination about chatbots, but the plethora of applications for AI goes far beyond that. Developers need to cut through the noise and think creatively about applications to propel the next stage of AI development, said Wang, who built Alibaba's now second-largest business from scratch in 2009. 'Probably 90 per cent of the AI people are talking about, I would say, will go away in five or 10 years because it's not really the essence of this technology,' said the computer scientist. 'But that's not bad, and it just helps us to explore.' Wang, who cemented his reputation at Microsoft Research Asia before joining Alibaba, knows a thing or two about thinking outside the box. Shortly after joining, he pitched the idea of a computing business to Alibaba's billionaire co-founder, Jack Ma. He recounted being nervous because he had no concrete business proposal, no models to present, just a conviction that the need for computing would explode in the coming years. He was right. Alicloud, as it's commonly known, is today a US$16 billion business. It not only underpins Alibaba's global e-commerce and logistics endeavours, but it's also the progenitor of the Qwen model, considered on par with DeepSeek and US rivals such as GPT and Gemini. Alibaba has gone all-in on AI, joining the race to build human-like intelligence. US and Chinese companies are investing billions of US dollars to develop a technology with the potential to turbocharge economies and, over the long run, tip the balance of geopolitical power. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders in a call to arms to ensure companies such as OpenAI and Google help safeguard America's lead in the post-ChatGPT era. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Wang refrained from addressing that broader conflict. But he did have some choice words for the way the likes of OpenAI and Meta Platforms have thrown money at the problem, including by signing on talented engineers at sports-megastar salaries. 'What happened in Silicon Valley is not the winning formula,' he said. 'It's really about innovation. So when you are in the early stage of innovation, I don't think talent is a problem because the only thing you need to do is to get the right person, not really the expensive person.' Going back almost two decades, Wang admits he never saw the present-day AI revolution coming so soon. All he envisioned was computing becoming as vital as electricity or oil. That should remain so for at least decades. As for China, Wang's firm belief is it will remain a hotbed of innovation, in part because it's one of the biggest technology laboratories in the world. 'It's a test bed for the new technology,' he said. 'People are just fascinated about technology. They are doing a lot of different things.' BLOOMBERG
