Nvidia acquired OctoAI in its fifth deal this year, making it the semiconductor giant’s most acquisition-heavy year ever. The five-year-old startup develops software that improves the performance of machine learning models.
OctoAI CEO Luis Ceze posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday, “I couldn’t be more excited to join NVIDIA and help expand our efforts in ML compilers and cloud infrastructure for AI.”
OctoAI was founded in 2019 by Luis Ceze, Jared Roesch, Tianqi Chen, Jason Knight, and Thierry Moreau, with Ceze serving as CEO.
Mr. Ceze has been appointed Vice President of AI Systems Software at Nvidia. He’s also a professor at the University of Washington, the startup’s birthplace.
A machine learning compiler is software that acts as a translator between a model and the hardware on which it runs, like Nvidia’s graphics processing unit. OctoAI’s software was intended to make it easy for developers to use any AI hardware, not just the one designed by his Nvidia. OctoAI worked with Nvidia along with AMD and AWS before the acquisition.
Nvidia also designs the compiler, and Ceze praised Nvidia’s leadership in making machine learning more accessible. “Nvidia has been betting on AI for a long time. They have a level of software maturity that no other provider can match,” Ceze told Business Insider. last year. “With custom silicon for AI, there is a strong need for mature and easy-to-use system software stacks,” he continued.
OctoAI and Nvidia announced a partnership in March to optimize Nvidia’s NIM service (Nvidia Inference Microservices), which aims to enable enterprises to create their own custom AI.
OctoAI will end its commercial cloud service on October 31st.
Nvidia continues to face intense regulatory scrutiny over acquisitions over concerns that they could make the AI hardware and, increasingly, the AI software industry less competitive.
“One of the most difficult decisions we make as investors and board members is evaluating the benefits and risks of selling a company at a critical juncture in its journey. Among the market leaders in AI infrastructure, OctoAI investor Matt McIlwain, managing director at Madrona Venture Group, posted on LinkedIn.
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The Seattle-based startup has raised $130 million in funding, according to Pitchbook. Most recently, he raised $85 million in a Series C round led by Tiger Global Management. According to The Information, OctoAI’s latest valuation was $900 million as of 2021. The publication also reported that OctoAI brought in low single-digit revenue last year.
Sese did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nvidia declined to comment on the acquisition or confirm whether the entire OctoAI team will join the company.
As of Thursday morning, several OctoAI employees had already updated their LinkedIn profiles to reflect their Nvidia job titles.
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