Artificial Intelligence is increasingly becoming an integral part of many businesses across various industries, driving advancements in various fields at once. To enable and fuel the growth of AI, companies are now in constant pursuit of powerful and efficient computing solutions that can handle the advanced and complex requirements of AI applications. This is leading to the emergence of AI chips, also known as AI accelerators. The companies designing and supplying various industries with these AI chips are therefore crucial for the practical deployment of AI applications of all sorts.
How AI Chips Power the AI Revolution
The ongoing AI revolution cannot take place without enough computing power required to enable it. The processing power and energy efficiency of AI chips are necessary to use AI in all its applications in fields like healthcare, cybersecurity, robotics, autonomous driving, and so on. AI chips therefore stand as the foundation for most AI applications and AI infrastructure.
AI chip companies have therefore emerged as the driving force, shaping the very landscape of artificial intelligence in almost all its uses. These companies design chips that power the AI tools that are increasingly in everyday and business use. The microchips are specifically designed to handle the complex demands of AI applications.
The following companies are the leading AI chip companies in the world right now. They are the major designers, manufacturers and/or suppliers of AI chips and therefore stand at the very beginning of the AI supply and application chain.
The Leading AI Chip Companies:
Nvidia
Full Company Name: Nvidia Corporation
Founded in 1993
HQ: Santa Clara, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips (primarily GPUs)
Nvidia is renowned for its Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and has now also ventured into the AI chip market with remarkable success. The company was crucial and the leading force in making GPUs the preferred choice for AI accelerators. Nvidia’s AI chips, such as the A100, H100, or the Volta, Xavier, and Tesla series, have been designed to address challenges and offer solutions across and for various industries, from tech companies to the car industry. Nvidia’s new AI chip models are expected to push the boundaries of AI technology even further in the coming years, making Nvidia perhaps the biggest player in the field of AI chips.
IBM
Full Company Name: International Business Machines Corporation
Founded in 1911
HQ: Armonk, New York, USA
(Main) Industry: IT
IBM, an early pioneer in the field of AI, is now also a major technology leader when it comes to AI accelerators. As early as 2014, well ahead of its time, IBM released its groundbreaking neuromorphic chip TrueNorth with 5.4 billion transistors, 1 million neurons, and 256 million synapses. With huge investments and also with its new NorthPole chip, IBM is now once again attempting to change the AI accelerator landscape. IBM’s AI chips promise to deliver high-quality data interpretation and efficient deep network inference. These chips are set to make significant impacts in various applications and fields. All this continues to set IBM apart as a major leader in the global AI chip industry.
TSMC
Full Company Name: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd
Founded in 1987
HQ: Hsinchu, Taiwan
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips
TSMC is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors, acting as an independent semiconductor foundry. TSMC manufactures most of the microchips designed by the big fabless semiconductor chip companies such as Nvidia, Intel, or AMD. The company is known for its almost world-exclusive ability to manufacture the most high-performing microchips for its clients and is therefore often considered the most important company in the global semiconductor industry. As such, TSMC also plays a crucial role in the development of AI chips. The company, for example, manufactures the leading A100 and H100 AI processors that were designed by Nvidia. As much as AI chip design matters, when it comes to the actual manufacture of AI accelerators, TSMC remains the global key player.
Alphabet
Full Company Name: Alphabet Inc.
Founded in 2015
HQ: Mountain View, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Internet Search Engine
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has made a significant contribution to and continues to have a great impact on the AI chip market with its purpose-built machine learning accelerator chip, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). This chip already powers various Google products, including Translate, Photos, Search, Assistant, and Gmail. Additionally, Alphabet’s Edge TPU is designed for Edge devices such as smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices, further solidifying the internet company’s position as another leader in the AI chip market.
AMD
Full Company Name: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Founded in 1969
HQ: Santa Clara, California, USA
(Main) AI Chip Field: Semiconductors / Microchips
AMD is known for its CPUs as well as GPUs and is now venturing into the AI chip market to address the growing need for robust computational power. AMD is set to release its first designed AI chip, the MI300, by the end of 2023 and thus will officially enter the race in the AI accelerator market. AMD’s strong commitment to AI and its versatility in the microchip industry naturally makes the company a significant player in the AI accelerator field.
Intel
Full Company Name: Intel Corporation
Founded in 1968
HQ: Santa Clara, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips (primarily CPUs)
As the world’s largest supplier of Central Processing Units (CPUs) in the retail market, Intel has also begun to make significant strides in the AI chip industry. The semiconductor/microchip company has announced the plan to release several series of AI chips in the near future, intended for various applications and industries. While lagging a bit behind in the field, Intel’s commitment to AI and its vast expertise and ability to deliver microchips, undoubtedly makes them another key player in the AI chip industry.
Cerebras
Full Company Name: Cerebras Systems Inc.
Founded in 2015
HQ: Sunnyvale, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips
Cerebras is a relatively young company that has captured the attention of the semiconductor/microchip industry with its groundbreaking chip solution, the Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE), a processor designed specifically for artificial intelligence. The powerful AI chip’s second generation, the Cerebras WSE-2, is already powering Cerebra’s own CS-2 AI system. The chip boasts an impressive 850,000 cores and 2.6 trillion transistors. Cerebras’ AI chip and AI infrastructure are already used by multiple industries and giant companies inside them, most notably in the Healthcare AI industry. This way, Cerebras has established itself as an important player in the global AI accelerator branch.
Graphcore
Full Company Name: Intel Corporation
Founded in 2016
HQ: Bristol, England, UK
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips (IPUs)
Graphcore is a semiconductor/microchip company that has mainly gained recognition for its creation and development of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), a processor specifically designed to meet the needs of artificial intelligence. Graphcore’s IPUs promise higher performance and more energy-efficient computing, both critical aspects of the ongoing AI revolution in research and the world economy. Additionally, the company also offers IPU-powered data centers and cloud services. Through its innovative and original approach and many strategic partnerships within relevant industries, Graphcore is now definitely another leader in the AI chip industry.
Groq
Full Company Name: Groq, Inc.
Founded in 2016
HQ: Mountain View, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips
Groq is another semiconductor company revolutionizing the AI chip architecture with its innovative AI infrastructure products, such as the GroqChip processor, the GroqCard accelerator, the GroqNode server, and the GroqRack for data centers. Through this broad AI product range, Groq is able to offer High-Performance Computing (HPC) solutions for a wide range of different industries. Especially within the AI Finance industry, but also many other businesses, Groq has established itself and continues to establish itself as a key player in the AI chip market.
Mythic
Full Company Name: Mythic Inc.
Founded in 2012
HQ: Austin, Texas, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips (AMPs)
Mythic is another semiconductor/microchip company that has the potential to change the AI chip landscape. The company makes waves with its unconventional analog computing architecture. By combining digital and analog computations, Mythic delivers power-efficient edge AI computing through its Analog Matrix Processor (AMP), powered by the company’s Mythic Analog Compute Engine (Mythic ACE). Mythic promises superior performance with less energy power consumption, which is essential for large-scale AI application fields such as Smart Homes, Smart Cities, Drones, Virtual Reality, and Robotics.
SambaNova Systems
Full Company Name: SambaNova Systems, Inc
Founded in 2017
HQ: Palo Alto, California, USA
(Main) Industry: Semiconductors / Microchips
SambaNova Systems is a relatively new semiconductor/microchip company offering a platform for full-stack AI accelerator solutions. The company is partnered with TSMC, which manufactures SambaNova’s designed AI chips, which are then used to power SambaNova’s AI platform. The AI chips also use SambaNova’s own developed Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) processor that gained recognition for both its capabilities and provided flexibility. SambaNova Systems additionally builds and leases data centers to businesses of different sizes, providing an overall comprehensive service for AI infrastructure needs.
These leading AI chip companies are currently at the forefront of powering AI technology and AI applications. By delivering powerful and efficient AI chips, they enable AI startups, companies, and entire industries to pave the way for a future powered by artificial intelligence. As the demand for AI continues to grow, these companies will also continue to develop more powerful and efficient AI accelerators and continue shaping the landscape of AI technology and propelling the world into a new era of intelligent computing.