Anthropic Poaches Google Chip Veteran Amid Custom Chip Push
Anthropic has made a significant move in its efforts to develop custom chips for its AI infrastructure. The company has hired Amir Salek, who previously ran Google's tensor processing unit business until 2022 and delivered the first seven generations of those chips.
Salek will join Anthropic's compute team as part of the company's push into making its own semiconductors. This move is part of a broader effort by Anthropic to build an in-house silicon business, which would allow it to tailor designs better meet its needs and cope with supply shortages.
Anthropic currently buys chips from various sources, including Nvidia Corp., Google, and Amazon.com Inc. However, the company has been signing chip and data center capacity deals at a rapid clip, including an agreement with UK-based chip startup Fractile for an initial order of roughly $250 million of its chips.
Rival OpenAI is also taking similar steps, having unveiled a chip called Jalapeno co-developed with Broadcom Inc., which it plans to begin using later this year. This development highlights the growing importance of custom chips in the AI industry, as companies scramble to get enough data center infrastructure to support their ambitions.