Hyundai Motor Group has made a strategic investment in Tenstorrent, an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor company based in Toronto, Canada.
This move will allow the group to integrate AI into future Hyundai, Kia and Genesis vehicles as well as other future mobility solutions such as robotics and advanced air mobility.
Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corporation will invest $50 million ($30M and $20M respectively), making the Group the lead investor in Tenstorrent’s latest funding round of $100 million. The investment will be used to accelerate Tenstorrent’s design and development of AI chiplets and its machine learning (ML) software roadmap.
Founded in 2016, Tenstorrent focuses on designing and developing advanced processors to accelerate AI and ML workloads. It aims to create efficient and high-performance hardware solutions that enable deep learning at scale.
Hyundai Group expects to leverage Tenstorrent’s high-performance technologies and experience to jointly develop optimised semiconductors while strengthening its own technological capabilities. The newly developed high-performance semiconductors will be applied to central and neural processing units for future vehicles and mobility solutions.
Heung-soo Kim, Executive Vice President and Head of the Global Strategy Office at Hyundai Motor Group, said Tenstorrent’s growth potential and high-performance AI semiconductors would help secure competitive technologies for future mobilities.
“With this investment, the Group expects to develop optimised but differentiated semiconductor technology that will aid future mobilities and strengthen internal capabilities in AI technology development,” he added.
Jim Keller, CEO, Tenstorrent, said, “It has been impressive watching Hyundai Motor Group become the third largest automaker in the world through their aggressive adoption of technology including their acquisition of Boston Dynamics, their joint venture with Aptiv, and now their investment in us.”
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