Sam Altman backed Rain AI lands top Apple chip executive to propel energy-efficient AI chip development – WION
Rain AI has tapped an erstwhile high-placed executive at Apple to steer the company’s energy-efficient AI chip development plans. Jean-Didier Allegrucci was behind overseeing the development of processors that allowed iPhones and Macs to work independently of Intel Corp. chips. Now, he will lead Rain AI’s hardware engineering efforts, an experience base that will drive that company’s forays into energy-efficient chips.
Rain AI has tapped an erstwhile high-placed executive at Apple to steer the company’s energy-efficient AI chip development plans. Jean-Didier Allegrucci was behind overseeing the development of processors that allowed iPhones and Macs to work independently of Intel Corp. chips. Now, he will lead Rain AI’s hardware engineering efforts, an experience base that will drive that company’s forays into energy-efficient chips.
He’ll work closely alongside lead architect Amin Firoozshahian, who spent five years at Meta Platforms Inc. The high-profile recruitment is the second major hire Rain AI has made this month.
San Francisco-based Rain AI is backed by OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Y Combinator. The firm belongs to the growing crop of startups that are coming up with new hardware tailor-made for AI platforms. It focuses on in-memory compute technology, relatively new and similar to the way human brains process information. This means it processes data where it is stored, avoiding energy consumption associated with shuttling data to separate processors.
Rain AI joins Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. in researching in-memory computing, but there are a lot of challenges to climb in terms of economic viability and ecological harm with this technology. Still, if more efficient chips are wanted-and they are essential for many more AI applications to spread throughout a fully loaded swath of devices-pursuing a new compute approach is necessary.
“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.
The focus of Rain AI on energy-efficient chips couldn’t be timelier, with the surging demand for AI capabilities. It accelerates the attainment of more sustainable yet higher-performance AI hardware.
