Nvidia buys AI chip startup Groq’s assets for $20 billion in the company’s biggest deal ever — Transaction includes acquihires of key Groq employees, including

Nvidia buys AI chip startup Groq's assets for $20 billion in the company's biggest deal ever — Transaction includes acquihires of key Groq employees, including

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Nvidia, the largest GPU manufacturer in the world and the linchpin of the AI data center buildout, has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with AI chip rival Groq to use the company's intellectual property. The deal is valued at $20 billion and includes acquihires of key employees within the firm who will now be joining Nvidia. The firm spent $7 billion for Israeli chip company Mellanox in 2019, so the record has now been toppled.

Groq is an American AI startup developing Language Processing Units (LPUs) that it positions as significantly more efficient and cost-effective than standard GPUs. Groq's LPUs are ASICs, which are seeing growing interest from many firms due to their custom design, which is better suited to certain AI tasks, such as large-scale inference. Groq argues that it excels in inference, having previously called it a high-volume, low-margin market.

Nvidia is the largest benefactor of the AI boom because it supplies most of the world's data centers and has deals with essentially every AI constituent. Groq has accused Nvidia in the past of predatory tactics over exclusivity , claiming that potential customers remain fearful of Nvidia's inventory allotment if they're found talking to competitors, such as Groq, historically. Those concerns seem to have been laid to bed with the deal.

Nvidia's market capitalization hits $5.12 trillion

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