Tenstorrent, a hardware start-up developing next generation computers, announced the addition of industry veteran Jim Keller as President, CTO, and board member.
“Tenstorrent was founded on the belief that the ongoing shift towards ML-centric software necessitates a corresponding transformation in computational capabilities,” said Ljubisa Bajic, Tenstorrent’s CEO. “There is nobody more capable of executing this vision than Jim Keller, a leader who is equally great at designing computers, cultures, and organizations. I am thrilled to be working with Jim and beyond excited about the possibilities our partnership unlocks.”
As CTO, Keller will lead Tenstorrent’s efforts to be the hardware solution needed to address Software 2.0, the exciting industry shift towards using machine learning methods to solve problems previously addressed by traditional software.
“Software 2.0 is the largest opportunity for computing innovation in a long time. Victory requires a comprehensive re-thinking of compute and low level software,” Keller said. “Tenstorrent has made impressive progress, and with the most promising architecture out there, we are poised to become a next gen computing giant.”
Keller’s addition to both the team and the board is a strong vote of confidence in Tenstorrent’s ability to become a major player in a sector currently dominated by behemoths.
“Tenstorrent’s differentiated approach to accelerating AI, along with the team’s pedigree, are what convinced Eclipse to initially invest in 2017. We are committed to supporting their ambitious vision, and Jim’s arrival only further bolsters our faith in that vision,” said Greg Reichow, partner at Eclipse and Tenstorrent board member.
Keller joined Tenstorrent following two years as Senior Vice President of Intel’s Silicon Engineering Group. He has held roles as Tesla’s Vice President of Autopilot and Low Voltage Hardware, Corporate Vice President and Chief Cores Architect at AMD, and Vice President of Engineering and Chief Architect at P.A. Semi, which was acquired by Apple Inc.
During his long and impactful career he has helped create some of today’s most iconic technology including the AMD Zen, K7 (Athlon) and K8 micro-architectures, Apple A4-A7 processors, the x86-64 instruction set and HyperTransport interconnect.
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with U.S. offices in Austin, Texas, and Silicon Valley, Tenstorrent brings together experts in the field of computer architecture, asic design, advanced systems, and neural network compilers. Tenstorrent is backed by Eclipse Ventures and Real Ventures, among others.
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