Startup Untether launches new AI chip

The news: Toronto-based startup Untether AI launched a new artificial intelligence chip on Monday that powers AI applications in cars, agricultural services, data centres and other edge-case scenarios.

The context: Unlike Nvidia and AMD chips focused on training large language models, Untether’s 240 Slim AI accelerator card runs AI applications after models are built, promising high performance with reduced energy use.

Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Untether to integrate the 240 Slim in autonomous vehicles, and the chip, built on RISC-V technology, has shown strong performance in MLCommons benchmarks, Reuters reported.

The numbers: The company projects the so-called inference market – or market for chips that only run AI applications, as opposed to the training chip market – to reach USD102 billion ($154.91 billion) by 2027, VP of product Bob Beachler told Reuters in an interview.