Syntiant scores $55 million to grow global edge AI chip shipments to enterprise customers

Categories Edge Computing News  |  Funding  |  Hardware
Syntiant scores $55 million to grow global edge AI chip shipments to enterprise customers

Syntiant Corporation joins a long parade of companies raising money to develop chips for AI processing. Syntiant raised $55 million in new funding, bringing the total investment to more than $100 million within 5 years of its launch. Japanese semiconductor giant Renesas Electronics Corporation alongside Millennium Technology Value Partners and Mirae Asset Capital joined a notable group of existing investors. Among the notable investors are names like Intel Capital, Microsoft M12, Applied Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, and the Amazon Alexa Fund.

“We are at a pivotal point of our company’s growth and development, having shipped more than 20 million of our Neural Decision Processors as global market demand for edge AI rises among device manufacturers,” said Kurt Busch, CEO at Syntiant.

This round of funding will help the firm accelerate the production deployment of edge AI chips for a fast-growing market.  According to a report published by Deloitte, the market is forecasted to grow at a 20% CAGR and exceed sales of 1.5 billion processors by 2024. A top executive of Syntiant expects sales of chips to accelerate as the company has more than 50 current customers and are looking to refine its technology to make edge AI feasible for battery-powered devices.

Previously, Syntiant had collaborated with Renesas Electronics Corporation to develop a voice-controlled multimodal solution which paired Renesas’ RZ/V Series microprocessors and Syntiant’s NDP120 Neural Decision Processor to enable low-power operation for image processing in edge AI systems.

“Our investment in Syntiant further demonstrates the synergies between our companies as we work together to deliver combined edge AI solutions to customers globally,” said Sailesh Chittipeddi, EVP, GM of IoT and infrastructure business unit at Renesas.

The new funds will also be invested in improving the software capabilities along with the hardware developments to develop the third-generation Syntiant Core 3 architecture. The new chip design is expected to be released in 2023.

“We have researched dozens of edge AI chip companies, and Syntiant is the first we have seen to develop a software-centric turnkey solution that is already being deployed at scale,” said Jay Chong, partner at Millennium Technology Value Partners.

Designed for wearable devices such as earbuds and smartphones, Syntiant’s Neural Decision Processor allows the edge AI system to take advantage of multiple modalities– to hear, speak, see and feel. The hardware platform claims to offer more than 100x efficiency improvements while maintaining a 10x increase in throughput.

Syntiant always has been ahead of the curve with our deep learning technology, while we continue to execute on the company’s growth strategy,” added Busch.

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