Kneron startup gets a boost by $7Million investment

Kneron,is a leading provider of edge AI solutions.It was founded in the year 2015.The company is headquartered in San Diego,US.Kneron’s market ready solutions enable on device AI inferencing  and are cost effective.

 

The startup specializes in AI SYSTEM ON CHIP(SoC),Neural Processing Unit(NPU) and Visual Recognition Solutions.

 

Kneron’s smart solutions are designed to give a push to AI computing in smart homes, smart cities and security devices.Kneron’s smart home products are intelligent.

 

They process audio and video commands to control smart home products and provide security features like facial recognition verify identities and recognize dangerous objects.

 

Kneron is giving tough competition to AI chip makers like Intel and Google.Its AI chips consume low power,enable easy data processing through proprietary software unlike other chips that require data to be computed through the cloud centres in order to share with devices.

 

(Must check: Top IoT examples)

 

AI Chips

 

AI chips are also known as hardware accelerator.AI chips are specifically designed for artificial neural network(ANN)based applications. Artificial neural networks are built as a deep network with multiple layers.AI chips are based on phase change memory .

 

Phase change memory employs memory computing which doubles the accuracy of the system.AI chips use 33 times less energy compared to traditional chips.

 

(Most recommended: Introduction to Deep Learning and Neural Network)

 

AI chips accelerate the computation of ML tasks by ten thousand times compared to GPU.Low power usage further improves resource utilization. AI chips have high bandwidth memory.

 

These chips consist of computing,storage,networking.Google,Intel,Apple,Nvidia,Baidu are the leading manufacturers of AI chips.Google makes AI-powered TPU.Apple is making A11,A12 Apple’s bionic chips to provide faster speeds to apple devices.

 

To boost this startup Delta Electronics a Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company has invested $7M in the startup.The $7 million investment will boost the startup’s total financing to $100 million.

 

Kneron has also acquired Vatics(a part of Delta Electronics) in $10 million all cash.Vatics is  an image signal processing provider that sells System on a Chip(Soc)to automotive manufacturers in the US and China.

 

Kneron is a leading AI chip manufacturer and is known to supply chips to manufacturers,robotics,surveillance,payments and autonomous driving cars.In the past the startup has collaborated with Foxconn and Otus the suppliers of Honda and Toyota.

 

AI chips are now getting popular compared to the traditional chips. As AI based semiconductor production is increasing tremendously companies are targeting the AI chip market.

 

According to Tech Crunch, Kneron’s founder and CEO said,“This acquisition will allow us to offer full-stack AI solutions, along with our current class-leading NPUs [neural processing units], and will significantly speed up our go-to-market strategy.”