Dataflow-as-a-Service of SambaNova

Inside AI, 2021/4/14

SambaNova, a developer of AI hardware and software systems, raised $676M in financing that values the startup at over $5.1B. The Nvidia competitor makes chips for AI processes, which it uses to build servers and AI software that it leases to other businesses.

SambaNova's chips are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. It was able to avoid the global chip production shortfall by ensuring production capacity with TSMC through investing. It develops integrated systems that run on the hardware.

Selling an integrated hardware and software platform, which runs AI apps from data centers to the edge, eliminates the need for businesses to hire as many machine learning experts to crunch data, co-founder and CEO Rodrigo Liang said.

In 2017, Liang, a longtime Oracle executive, founded the company with Stanford professors Kunle Olukotun and Chris Re. It came out of stealth late last year.

SambaNova, Fast Track AI with an Extensible ML Services Platform, 2021/4.

SambaNova, Going Beyond the State-of-the-Art in Recommendation Models, 2021/4.

According to Facebook, 79% of AI inference cycles in their production data centers are devoted to recommendation (source). These engines serve as the primary drivers for user engagement and profit across numerous other Fortune 100 companies, with 35% of Amazon purchases and 75% of watched Netflix shows coming from recommendations (source).