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The race to better compete with Nvidia (NVDA) is well underway.
Enter well-funded private company Groq (GROQ.PVT), led by chip veteran Jonathan Ross. While at Google (GOOG), Ross designed the custom chips that the tech giant would go on to use for training its AI models.
Ross tells me his startup, founded in 2016, is finding numerous opportunities to wrestle business away from the iron grips of AI chip titan Nvidia by moving quicker.
“[Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang] said, if you want to spend $100 billion and have hardware in two years in your data center, there’s only one company in the world that you can trust to do that, and that’s Nvidia,” Ross said on a new episode of Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid podcast (see video above; listen below). “I agree with that statement. But where people come to us is they don’t want to wait two years.”
“They want to be able to spend $100 million and have a bunch of chips set up in three months. … And if you want do that, there’s only one company in the world you can go to, and that’s Groq.”
The company makes what it calls language processing units (LPUs). These LPUs are designed to make large language models run faster and more efficiently than Nvidia GPUs, which target training models.
Groq’s last capital raise came in August 2024, when it raised $640 million from companies including BlackRock (BLK) and Cisco (CSCO).
The company’s valuation at the time stood at $2.8 billion, a fraction of Nvidia’s more than $3 trillion market cap. It currently clocks in at $3.5 billion, according to Yahoo Finance private markets data.
Ross was part of the high-profile tech leader delegation that included Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and joined President Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia.
Ross was able to secure $1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia to expand AI chip delivery to the country.
“They want to become net exporters of intelligence the way that they are net exporters of energy at the moment,” Ross said of the deal with Saudi Arabia.
Three times each week, Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi fields insight-filled conversations and chats with the biggest names in business and markets on Opening Bid. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service.
Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.
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