Chip designer Jim Keller works at start-up Tenstorrent on new chips for AI

Jim Keller joins Tenstorrent as chief technical officer. The start-up says it is working on a ‘new generation of computers’, fully focused on machine learning. Keller states that the architecture of Tenstorrent is promising.

Jim Keller – Photo: Intel

In his role as CTO, Keller will lead the development of the hardware required for “Software 2.0,” Tenstorrent wrote in a press release. The company is referring to the shift to the use of machine learning to solve problems that were previously tackled with traditional software.

Keller calls this “the greatest opportunity for computer innovation” in a long time. He argues that this requires a comprehensive rethinking of how computing power and software are deployed. “Tenstorrent has made impressive strides and with the most promising architecture available, we are poised to become a next-gen computing giant,” said the chip designer.

Tenstorrent released its first Jawbridge chip design in 2019, AnandTech writes. The second generation is now being shipped to customers under the name Grayskull and the company is working on a third generation Wormhole, which should be ready this year. The current Grayskull chip is made using a 12nm process from GlobalFoundries. Tenstorrent’s CEO tells AnandTech that Keller will be making “new and interesting things” at the company.

Tenstorrent only makes chip designs; the company does not currently manufacture chips or processors, but works with third parties to integrate the chip designs into chips or systems tailored to specific applications. It is not known who Tenstorrent’s customers are.

Keller is one of the most influential chip designers of recent decades. His long career began in the 1980s at DEC, where he worked on Alpha, a 64-bit instruction set. He then worked at AMD on the architectures for the Athlon processors and co-responsible for Apple’s first proprietary socs, before returning to AMD to work on the Zen architecture. He then worked at Tesla on chips for self-driving cars, and in 2018 Intel hired the prominent chip designer. It is not known what Keller worked on at Intel. In June 2020, Keller left Intel due to personal circumstances.

Chip company Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 by Ljubisa Bajic and has about seventy employees. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, the company has an office in Austin, United States. Founder Bajic worked as a chip architect in various positions between 2003 and 2016, alternately at AMD and Nvidia.

The career of chip designer Jim Keller at a glance. Table via AnandTech.