Nvidia has hired the leadership of a promising AI chip startup as the artificial intelligence giant expands its tech empire.
Chip maker Groq said the departure of its top executives was part of a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for its inference technology, as both companies seek to expand access to low-cost AI processing.
Under the agreement, Groq founder Jonathan Ross and president Sunny Madra, along with other team members, will join Nvidia to help develop and scale the Groq's technology.
Nvidia's domination of the AI training chip market has made it the world's biggest company by market valuation, but it faces increasing competition in the inference segment from specialized startups like Groq.
AI inference refers to the process of running pre-trained AI models to make predictions or generate responses —such as when ChatGPT answers a user's question or when an image recognition system identifies objects in a photo.
Groq will remain an independent company under new chief executive Simon Edwards, the firm said in a short statement.
The arrangement resembles an "acquihire" — a practice increasingly common in Silicon Valley where larger tech companies poach key staff from smaller firms, leaving a small remnant of the company behind.
The practice is largely designed to evade the scrutiny of competition regulators that have become skittish about tech giants snapping up promising companies that stand a chance of becoming rivals.
