Yahoo Finance Sam Altman-Backed Rain AI Hires Apple Chip Vet to Lead Hardware
(Bloomberg) -- Rain AI has recruited an Apple Inc. chip executive to lead hardware engineering, the second high-profile hire this month for a startup trying to design a new type of semiconductor for artificial intelligence.
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Jean-Didier Allegrucci, who helped oversee the development of processors that replaced Intel Corp. in iPhones and Macs, will steer Rain AI’s efforts to create more energy-efficient chips. He’ll work with lead architect Amin Firoozshahian, who moved over to the startup after five years at Meta Platforms Inc.
Backed by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Y Combinator, San Francisco-based Rain AI is one of a growing cohort of startups looking to develop new hardware for AI platforms. It’s exploring a technique known as in-memory compute, modeled on the way the human brain works, which promises to save on power consumption by processing data where it’s stored.
Rain AI joins Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. in researching in-memory computing, which still faces questions around economic viability and environmental impact. But in the long run, more efficient chips are essential to adding AI to a wider range of devices.
“Our novel compute-in-memory technology will help unlock the true potential of today’s generative AI models, and get us one step closer to running the fastest, cheapest, and most advanced AI models anywhere,” Rain AI Chief Executive Officer William Passo said in a statement.
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