Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to acquire Canadian startup Taalas as the chipmaker broadens its artificial intelligence portfolio beyond graphics processing units and strengthens its capabilities in AI inference.
Toronto-based Taalas develops specialised inference chips that are customised, or hard-wired, for individual AI models rather than serving as general-purpose processors.
“AMD is building a full-stack AI platform that gives customers the flexibility to deploy the right compute solutions for every AI workload," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD.
"Taalas' technology and world-class engineering team strengthen our AI portfolio by delivering differentiated inference performance and efficiency.”
The acquisition comes just over seven months after Nvidia spent US$20 billion acquiring assets from AI chip startup Groq, marking the largest deal in Nvidia's history.
Taalas' current processor is designed to run a smaller version of Meta's Llama 3.1 model, while the company is also developing chips for larger and more advanced AI models.
The chips are manufactured using an older Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. production process and feature high-speed SRAM memory integrated directly onto the chip.
“We founded Taalas to rethink AI inference from the ground up by building the hardware around the model,” said Ljubisa Bajic, co-founder and chief executive of Taalas.
“Our Canada-based team has combined deep technical expertise with a willingness to challenge conventional approaches. Joining AMD will give us the scale, engineering resources and global reach to accelerate our innovation.”
Specialised inference chips such as those developed by Taalas and Groq are increasingly valuable for low-latency AI applications, where delivering the fastest possible response is critical.
The deal also highlights the growing importance of integrated AI infrastructure, with leading semiconductor companies increasingly combining processors, accelerators and supporting technologies into complete computing platforms.
AMD recently began shipping its Helios rack-scale AI systems to customers including Meta and Microsoft, positioning them as a rival to Nvidia's integrated AI server offerings.
The company said Taalas' technology will be incorporated into its future product roadmap alongside its central processing units and Instinct GPUs.
AMD is also expanding its AI ecosystem through partnerships, including a recently announced agreement with Cerebras to integrate its AI chips into AMD systems later this year.
The acquisition is the latest in a series of AI investments by AMD. In 2024, the company acquired Silo AI for $665 million and purchased ZT Systems for $4.9 billion to strengthen its rack-scale computing capabilities.
It has also bought several smaller AI firms, including inference software developer MK1.
