Rain Neuromorphics, a startup that designs chips that mimic the way the brain works and aims to serve companies using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, said on Wednesday that it has raised $25 million (approximately Rs. 187 million). rupees).
Gordon Wilson, CEO and co-founder of Rain, said that while most AI chips on the market today are digital, his company’s technology is analog. Digital chips read 1’s and 0’s, while analog chips can decipher incremental information, such as sound waves.
“It’s about looking at the brain first for clues to inform how we can build a new computational substrate,” Wilson said. “By building neural circuits, we can achieve extraordinary efficiency and extraordinary scale simultaneously.
The AI market is currently dominated by NVIDIA graphics chips. Other US startups that have been raising funds include SambaNova Systems, Groq and Cerebras Systems.
Sam Altman, a well-known Silicon Valley AI investor and researcher who was an early backer of Rain, told Reuters by email that the company’s “neuromorphic approach could greatly reduce the costs of creating powerful AI models and, Hopefully one day it will help.” to enable true artificial general intelligence.”
Rain’s chip is designed by adding a circuit called a memristor onto silicon wafers. Memristors, originally designed by HP Labs about a decade ago, serve as “artificial synapses” that allow processing and memory to occur in the same place, making it possible to run AI algorithms much faster and more power efficiently than ever before. existing digital AI. fries, Wilson said.
The funds raised will be used to expand the engineering team as Rain takes its prototype chip into the next stage of development, Wilson said.
The latest funding round was handled by Prosperity 7 Ventures, a venture capital fund of Aramco Ventures.
