Jim Keller, an engineer who has worked at AMD, Apple and Tesla and is now CEO of an AI-chip startup that rivals Nvidia, said Nvidia is “becoming the IBM of the AI era.”
During Sunday's podcast episode of DemystifySci, Keller took a look at Nvidia's AI chips, noting how companies like Microsoft and Google are using the company's technology to drive their own innovation.
“All the big tech companies are in an arms race, and they're all calling on Nvidia,” Keller said.
Related: According to insiders, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang turned down a merger offer early on in the company's history, and here's why:
Keller, who now heads the $2 billion AI chip startup Tenstorrent, which is backed by Samsung and Hyundai, said Nvidia currently has the “best processor in terms of features.”
He went on to say that Nvidia is “slowly becoming the IBM of the AI era,” adding, “We'll see how it goes. I run an AI tech company, so I have an opinion on that as well.”
TenStorrent CEO Jim Keller. Photo by Sungjun Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nvidia is currently the industry leader in AI chips, with over 80% of the market share. The company claims to have been a pioneer in AI computing, having started investing in AI and machine learning development as far back as 2006.
Related: An employee who worked for this company for the past five years is now a “semi-retired” millionaire.
IBM can also be considered a pioneer in the PC market. While IBM didn't invent the PC, its 1981 launch of the Personal Desktop opened up computing to a wider range of users and generated $1 billion in revenue in its first year.
According to IEEE Spectrum, IBM “set the technology standard” with the first PC.
Keller has previously spoken out about the cost of AI chips from both NVIDIA and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which currently uses NVIDIA chips. In April, he argued that NVIDIA could have cut its research and development costs, and in February he claimed that it could build an AI processor for any workload and AI company for one-eighth of the cost proposed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in March that the company's next-generation AI chips will cost more than $30,000.
Related: If you invested $10,000 when NVIDIA went public, how much would you have now?
