Tensordyne expects $200M in orders for AI system to rival Nvidia

Tensordyne said on Monday it expects more than $200 million in orders for its new inference ​system, as the AI chip startup positions ‌itself as a direct challenger to Nvidia in a fast-growing but increasingly power-hungry market.

Its Tensordyne Napier chip, developed ​in collaboration with Broadcom and HPE-owned Juniper Networks, ​is being manufactured by TSMC, the world’s ⁠leading contract chipmaker.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company aims to ​ease AI infrastructure constraints by improving inference speed, ​power efficiency and rack density amid surging generative AI demand.

CEO Marc Bolitho told Reuters that the product is set for ​an official launch in the coming months and the ​startup is seeing “a great amount of interest.”

“We have over a ‌dozen ⁠letters of intent for companies to evaluate our beta systems and we have over $200 million in forecasted demand going forward,” he said.

The company said AI ​infrastructure providers ​Cirrascale and ⁠BlueSky Compute had shown interest in the system, along with large technology companies ​and AI cloud service providers.

Founded in ​2017 as Recogni, ⁠it rebranded as Tensordyne last year. It has raised about $176 million from investors including Celesta Capital, ⁠GreatPoint ​Ventures and Juniper Networks, and is ​preparing for a Series D funding round later this year. Reuters