Anthropic Brings Chip Veteran Onboard for In-House Silicon Push
Anthropic PBC has hired Amir Salek, a veteran of Google's custom chip program, to lead its push into making its own semiconductors.
Salek will join Anthropic's compute team and report directly to James Bradbury. The executive previously ran Google's tensor processing unit business until 2022 and was responsible for delivering the first seven generations of those chips.
Anthropic, which currently buys chips from various sources, including Nvidia Corp, Google, and Amazon.com, has indicated a desire to build an in-house silicon business. The company has been hiring and listing jobs for this effort, aiming to tailor designs better suited to its needs.
Custom chips could help Anthropic cope with supply shortages, similar to rival OpenAI's recent move into the hardware space with its Jalapeno chip, co-developed with Broadcom. Anthropic has also signed deals with several vendors, including a $250 million contract with UK-based Fractile for an initial order of its chips.