AI Startups Plateau, AI SoCs Soar, and the Edge Diverges

By Junko Yoshida, Arteris IP (May 13, 2021)

While the tech industry continues to tout a “renaissance” of artificial intelligence, the number of AI chip startups has begun to plateau. AI startups are finding that the entry barriers to datacenters, once a promising market, are high — perhaps prohibitively so. Their problem traces to hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook now developing their own AI processors and accelerators that fit their specific needs.

To be clear, machine learning (ML) continues to advance. More variations of neural networks are popping up. AI is becoming intrinsic to every electronics system.

Laurent Moll, chief operating officer at Arteris, predicts that in the future, “everyone has some kind of AI in their SoCs.” That is good news for Arteris, because its business is in helping companies (large and small, or new and old) integrate SoCs by providing network-on-chip (NoC) IP and IP development tools.

For AI chip startups? Not so much. The competition is getting tough, complicating the challenge of cracking market segments suited to a particular AI design.

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