Tenstorrent swaps CEOs as Apple, AMD, Intel alum takes helm of AI chip unicorn

Renowned spot decorator Jim Keller has go CEO of Toronto-based artificial quality (AI) hardware institution Tenstorrent.

Keller, who archetypal joined Tenstorrent arsenic president and CTO 2 years ago, is shifting roles with CEO Ljubisa Bajic. As portion of the enactment shuffle, which Keller and Bajic precocious announced via LinkedIn, Bajic volition present service arsenic president and CTO of the AI spot unicorn.

As Bajic wrote, the displacement to CTO volition let him to dedicate his “full focus” to Tenstorrent’s tech.

Along with the CEO change, Tenstorrent besides announced that it has appointed chap ex-AMD and Tesla enforcement Keith Witek arsenic COO. Witek comes to Tenstorrent from Google wherever helium worked arsenic a manager of strategical alliances. At Tenstorrent, helium has been tasked with helping standard the company’s operations and strategy.

Tenstorrent, which is headquartered successful Toronto with operations successful Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, develops computing hardware for AI applications. In 2021, Tenstorrent closed over $200 cardinal USD successful Series C backing led by Fidelity Management astatine a $1 cardinal valuation. The institution has secured astir $244 cardinal successful full to date, from a radical that besides includes Eclipse Ventures and Montréal-based Real Ventures.

Bajic, formerly an designer astatine spot giants AMD and Nvidia, founded Tenstorrent successful 2016 and has led the steadfast since then. As Bajic wrote, the displacement to CTO volition let him to dedicate his “full focus” to Tenstorrent’s tech, including its forthcoming open-source bundle stack, hardware, and instrumentality learning (ML) solutions.

For his part, Keller is an experienced microprocessing technologist known for his enactment with Apple, AMD, Tesla, and Intel. Keller astir precocious served arsenic elder VP of silicon engineering astatine Intel, and VP of autopilot hardware engineering astatine Tesla. He was an aboriginal angel capitalist successful Tenstorrent anterior to joining the Toronto company’s C-suite successful 2021.

RELATED: Hardware startup Tenstorrent raises implicit $200 cardinal successful funding, claims $1 cardinal valuation

“I americium some humbled and arrogant to beryllium CEO of specified an outstanding institution and americium assured we are going to crook rather a fewer heads this twelvemonth with our accomplishments,” wrote Keller.

Tenstorrent has developed a machine processing spot called Grayskull that is designed for ML platforms. The Grayskull spot has 120 processors called “Tensix” cores that marque the chips suitable for heavy learning forms of AI. Tenstorrent initially planned to bring Grayskull to marketplace successful precocious 2021, but a institution spokesperson confirmed to BetaKit that Tenstorrent delayed that to make the bundle clients would usage with these chips.

Over the past year, Tenstorrent has added David Bennett arsenic main lawsuit officer, opened caller offices successful Belgrade and Bangalore, and added RISC-V arsenic a precedence to its merchandise roadmap. To enactment its merchandise improvement plans, Tenstorrent aims to adhd 100 engineers this twelvemonth to its 280-person team.

Feature representation courtesy Jim Keller via LinkedIn.

The station Tenstorrent swaps CEOs arsenic Apple, AMD, Intel alum takes helm of AI spot unicorn archetypal appeared connected BetaKit.