Latest news with #UntetherAI
Globe and Mail
14 hours ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Canadian chip company Untether AI winding down operations
Promising Canadian chip startup Untether AI Corp. is winding down after failing to raise money earlier this year, and its engineering employees will be transferred to American company Advanced Micro Devices AMD-T. The arrangement is known as an 'acquihire,' in which one company strikes a deal with another to gain access to talent instead of products or services. Toronto-based Untether designed computer chips for artificial intelligence applications such as autonomous vehicles, robots and drones, and said its products were far more energy efficient than others on the market. But the company pivoted too late to the hardware market for powering generative AI applications, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to two sources familiar with the matter, and struggled to compete against the dominance of Nvidia Corp. NVDA-T in the chip market. Economic uncertainty owing to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff agenda contributed to difficulties raising new funds from investors this year, one of the sources said. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they are not authorized to discuss the matter. Untether said in a statement on its website Thursday that it had entered into a 'strategic agreement' with chipmaker AMD, which is based in California. 'While today marks the end of Untether AI's journey, we are proud of the pioneering research that underpinned our work,' the statement read. The company added it will no longer supply or support its hardware and software products. AMD said in a statement to trade publication CRN that it is acquiring 'a talented team of AI hardware and software engineers' from Untether. One source said the value of the deal would likely be less than US$100-million depending on how many employees agree to join AMD. The source added that Meta Platforms Inc., which is working on custom chips for AI applications, was also in talks with Untether. It is not clear what will happen to Untether's intellectual property, which is not part of the transaction, but the source said it could be sold separately. Neither Untether nor AMD immediately replied to a request for comment. From 2024: Toronto's Untether straps in for growth selling AI chips - but can it avoid getting crushed by Nvidia? Chris Walker, Untether's chief executive, left the company in May, according to his LinkedIn profile. He did not reply to The Globe and Mail. Untether was founded in 2018 and received funding from Intel Capital, Radical Ventures, GM Ventures and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The company has raised around $150-million. That means given the potential value of the deal, investors are likely not recouping the total amount they invested. However, losses will depend on when investors first put money into Untether. The company's products were built on the research of co-founder and former University of Toronto professor Martin Snelgrove, who pioneered a different computer chip architecture. The dominant approach to chip-making has followed a design laid out by mathematician and physicist John von Neumann in 1945, but that design wastes a lot of energy shuttling data around. Untether cut the distance data must travel by placing memory and processing units side-by-side on the hardware. Untether pursued the self-driving vehicle market and other systems that use a form of AI know as computer vision, which involves detecting and interpreting objects in videos and images. But the AI world changed with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, as companies became obsessed with generative AI and chatbots. Nvidia became the most valuable publicly traded company in the world as large tech firms scrambled to purchase chips to install inside data centres for training AI models. Untether aimed to compete with Nvidia in the much larger market for powering AI inference, the term for using an AI model after it is built, such as asking a question of ChatGPT. Independent tests gave Untether's products high marks. MLCommons, an industry and academic consortium that benchmarks AI systems, found last year that one of Untether's chips was six times more energy efficient than competing products, and with lower latency, in one testing category. But Untether's push into the market for chips housed in data centres for generative AI may have come too late, especially given Nvidia's scale and reputation. The California-based company is worth close to US$3.5-trillion.
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
M&A News: AMD Continues Buying Spree by Acquiring Untether AI's Engineering Team
Chipmaker AMD (AMD) has, for an undisclosed amount, acquired the engineering team from Untether AI, which is a Canadian startup known for developing energy-efficient AI inference chips for edge devices and data centers. According to CRN, the team will now focus on improving AMD's AI software, chip design, and system integration. Untether AI, which will no longer sell its speedAI chips or software, said it was proud of its innovations and looks forward to contributing to AMD. Confident Investing Starts Here: This acquisition follows AMD's recent purchase of compiler startup Brium, as part of its plan to better compete with Nvidia (NVDA). Interestingly, Untether AI's chips, built on an 'at-memory' architecture, had shown significant gains in performance and energy efficiency. Indeed, its speedAI240 Slim card, for example, delivered industry-leading results in MLPerf benchmarks while using less power than competing solutions. The card had already been adopted by companies like J-Squared Technologies and Ola-Krutrim, with the latter having also partnered with Untether to co-develop next-gen data center solutions. Furthermore, Untether AI had built partnerships with firms like Ampere Computing, Arm (ARM), and NeuReality. This was because its chips addressed a growing demand for AI processors that consume less power than traditional GPUs, which are straining modern data center power limits. Nevertheless, AMD will now integrate Untether's expertise into its product portfolio in order to help expand its AI capabilities across a wider range of markets. Is AMD a Buy, Sell, or Hold? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on AMD stock based on 22 Buys, 10 Holds, and zero Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average AMD price target of $126.55 per share implies 8.9% upside potential.
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
AI Daily: WWDC to focus on redesigns as Apple lags in AI
Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly: Confident Investing Starts Here: SIDELINED ON AI: Apple's (AAPL) upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference will do little to assuage fears that the iPhone maker is a laggard in AI, Blomberg's Mark Gurman reports. Instead, the event will focus on design and productivity enhancements for its long-established operating system franchises. The company's keynote address will introduce redesigned software interfaces for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch, in addition to more minor tweaks to the Vision Pro headset. As part of the end-to-end overhaul, the company is also making a sweeping change to its software branding, which will shift from version numbers to a year-based system. That means Apple will introduce iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26, macOS 26 and watchOS 26 – named for 2026. Internally, the operating systems are known as Luck, Charisma, Discovery, Cheer and Nepali, respectively, the author notes. The AI changes will be surprisingly minor and are 'unlikely to impress' industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation by Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google, Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI, the publication adds. Apple's upcoming conference is expected to demonstrate how far behind the company is in the AI sector, Dan Gallagher of The Wall Street Journal reports. The Apple Intelligence service introduced at last year's conference is still being worked on and the Siri digital assistant is waiting for a previously announced AI makeover. Additionally, on top of its issues with AI, Apple is facing significant problems with tariffs threatening its profit margin and U.S. President Donald Trump pressuring the company to undo its two-decade-old business model of exclusively producing overseas. ROBOTAXI ROAD TESTING: (PONY) is ramping up its Robotaxi mass production and commercialization efforts with the launch of public road testing for its seventh-generation Robotaxis in China. The vehicles now testing on roads in the southern Chinese megacities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen are based on Guangzhou Auto's second-generation Aion V model and equipped with most advanced autonomous driving system, unveiled just over a month ago at the Shanghai Auto Show. recently obtained regulatory permit to conduct these road tests for its seventh generation Robotaxi jointly developed with GAC, marking a significant transition from laboratory and closed-track validation into real-world traffic environments. UNTETHER AI ACQUISITION: Untether AI, a developer of AI inference chips marketed as faster and more energy-efficient than rival products for edge environments and enterprise data centers, announced that it has entered into a transaction with AMD (AMD). 'As a result of the transaction, Untether AI will no longer be supplying or supporting our speedAI products and imAIgine Software Development Kit. While today marks the end of Untether AI's journey, we are proud of the pioneering research that underpinned our work in advancing state-of-the-art AI chip technology. We are grateful for the dedication of our team and the support of our customers, partners, and investors. We look forward to the contributions our world-class team will make with AMD.' AI EFFORTS: Wells Fargo raised the firm's price target on Shopify (SHOP) to $125 from $107 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. While not typically perceived as an AI play, the firm believes Shopify's AI efforts are differentiated and can serve as another important growth and efficiency driver for years to come.
TechCrunch
2 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
AMD acqui-hires the employees behind Untether AI
In Brief AMD is continuing its acquisition spree. Semiconductor giant AMD acqui-hired the team behind Untether AI, a startup that develops AI inference chips, as originally reported by CRN. Untether claims that their chips are faster and more energy-efficient than their rivals. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Toronto-based Untether was founded in 2018 and has raised more than $150 million in venture capital from firms including Intel Capital, Radical Ventures, and Tracker Capital Management, among others. Untether released an AI chip in October meant to power physical AI applications in machines including cars and agricultural devices. Earlier this week, AMD announced it had acquired AI software optimization platform Brium. TechCrunch has reached out to AMD for more information.
