AI chip startup Groq expands with first European knowledge heart
Jonathan Ross, chief government officer of Groq Inc., in the course of the GenAI Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, Might 30, 2024.
David Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
Synthetic intelligence semiconductor startup Groq introduced Monday it has established its first knowledge heart in Europe because it steps up its worldwide growth.
Groq, which is backed by funding arms of Samsung and Cisco, mentioned the information heart will likely be positioned in Helsinki, Finland and is in partnership with Equinix.
Groq is trying to reap the benefits of rising demand for AI companies in Europe following different U.S. corporations which have additionally ramped up funding within the area. The Nordics specifically is a well-liked location for the information services because the area has easy accessibility to renewable power and cooler climates. Final month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Europe and signed a number of infrastructure offers, together with knowledge facilities.
Groq, which is valued at $2.8 billion, designs a chip that the corporate calls a language processing unit (LPU). It’s designed for inferencing reasonably coaching. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI mannequin interprets dwell knowledge to give you a outcome, very like the solutions which might be produced by well-liked chatbots.
Whereas Nvidia has a stranglehold on the chips required for coaching large AI fashions with its graphics processing models (GPUs), there’s a swathe of startups hoping to take a slice of the pie in the case of inferencing. SambaNova; Ampere, an organization SoftBank is within the course of of buying; Cerebras and Fractile, are all trying to be a part of the AI inference race.
European politicians have been pushing the notion of sovereign AI — the place knowledge facilities should be positioned within the area. Information facilities which might be positioned nearer to customers additionally assist enhance the velocity of companies.
World knowledge heart builder Equinix connects completely different cloud suppliers collectively, comparable to Amazon Net Companies and Google Cloud, making it simpler for companies to have a number of distributors. Groq’s LPUs will likely be put in contained in the Equinix knowledge heart permitting companies to entry Groq’s inference capabilities through Equinix.
Groq at present has knowledge facilities within the U.S. and Canada and Saudi Arabia with its know-how.
Do not miss Groq CEO Jonathan Ross on Squawk Field Europe at 7:45 a.m. London time.
