LG Electronics, Canada’s Tenstorrent AI Computing Startup Partner for Chips Development

LG Electronics announced on Wednesday, May 31, that it has teamed up with a Canada-based AI computing startup called Tenstorrent. They will cooperate to develop next-generation chips that may power the former’s home appliances and automotive products.

Yonhap News Agency reported that the cooperation is expected to improve AI-enhanced features and high-performance computing in the South Korean electronics company’s premium TVs, high-performance semiconductors for vehicles, and other smart products that will be made in the future. The chips will also be used for data center products of Tenstorrents.

To be more specific, LG Electronics and Tenstorrent are working together to build a new generation of RISC-V, AI, and video codec chiplets. Under the agreement, the Toronto-headquartered next-generation computing company will supply artificial intelligence (AI) and RISC-V CPU technology to LG.

Reuters mentioned that initially, the electronics firm will utilize Tenstorrent's AI chip design to make its own chips. Later on, the two companies will work more deeply on other projects.

"It is increasingly important for industry leaders to own their silicon future," Tenstorrent’s chief executive officer, Jim Keller, said in a press release. "LG is a giant in our industry, and this collaboration will strengthen their portfolio of technologies for their future chip solutions, providing greater flexibility to differentiate their products."

LG Electronics’ chief technology officer, Kim Byoung Hoon, also commented, "This collaboration is just a beginning and Tenstorrent's market-leading AI and RISC-V CPU technologies will strengthen SoC competitiveness of LG's future products while our long-time proven video codec technology will help Tenstorrent take control of data center high-performance processor markets."

Kim further added that LG Electronics and Tenstorrent will share technology roadmaps and keep expanding the scope of their collaboration. Tenstorrent is a startup that was only established in 2016. It mainly builds computers for AI, and its CEO previously worked for Apple and AMD. Jim Keller was the lead designer of the AMD K8 microarchitecture and also participated in the designing of Apple A4/A5 processors.

Photo by: LG Newsroom