Great summary from Justin Kinsey on why Blumind should be on your list of AI companies to 'Bet On Changing the World'. Learn more at https://www.blumind.ai #tinyml #startup #AI #semiconductors #canada
President at SBT | 18 years of advising leaders in the semiconductor industry and architecting teams from startups to F500 companies
Here’s why Blumind made my list of the Top 13 AI/ML Startups to Bet On Changing the World… The semiconductor industry is racing to deliver high-performance computing with low power consumption - essential for integrating AI into everyday personal devices. AI at the Edge (or inference) has the potential to usher in the “Age of AI Everywhere”, empowering billions worldwide and driving global human advancement. However, according to Niraj Mathur traditional digital architectures aren't the key to unlocking the full potential of inference. Before co-founding Blumind, he led product marketing at Rambus for high-speed connectivity and witnessed the skyrocketing demand for data center bandwidth. His customers explained that machine learning was driving the shift and Niraj realized ML would soon dictate all innovations in compute technology. He also recognized a critical flaw: modern processors were never built to handle ML efficiently. Blumind’s contrarian approach feels like a “better mousetrap”. In a recent interview, Niraj shared his insight, explaining, “We don’t think of what we do as compute, we fundamentally see neural networks as more of a signal processing problem. With computers, you have program memory, data memory, ALUs, a compiler that runs on these arithmetic units and coordinates the data movement… what the industry has done is try to shoehorn neural networks into this architecture, which leads to all the inefficiencies we see today." Niraj and co-founder John Gosson envision neural networks running far more efficiently on analog hardware designed to mimic the human brain. “The brain is a biochemical signal processor.” He said, “we’ve modelled our architecture around this approach rather than the digital Von-Neumann compute approach." If successful, Blumind could deliver performance improvements 100x-1000x better than the best processors on the market. With their first production chip now taped out, the solution couldn’t come at a better time. In the past six months, companies have hit a wall of efficiency and adding hardware only increases costs and power consumption – counter to the virtues of democratic, responsible AI. While I believe in Blumind, they face more than technical challenges. They'll also have to tackle the adoption challenge. As Niraj told me in our interview, “We have a hard time articulating how we’re different to people who are stuck in the old paradigm.” Digital architectures, though less efficient, are familiar. Potential customers have to understand WHY Bluemind’s approach is worth the risk. The same goes for talent acquisition. As Blumind scales, they need to convince engineers and developers that joining this venture is akin to being an early employee at NVIDIA with the potential for impact that will change the world. My advice to Niraj, Jon and Roger? Master your story until you can tell it in your sleep. There is power in persuasion. #semiconductorindustry #artificalintelligence #startups