Strange that they raised money at all with an idea like this.
It's a bad idea that can't work well. Not while the field is advancing the way it is.
Manufacturing silicon is a long pipeline - and in the world of AI, one year of capability gap isn't something you can afford. You build a SOTA model into your chips, and by the time you get those chips, it's outperformed at its tasks by open weights models half their size.
Now, if AI advances somehow ground to a screeching halt, with model upgrades coming out every 4 years, not every 4 months? Maybe it'll be viable. As is, it's a waste of silicon.
It's a bad idea that can't work well. Not while the field is advancing the way it is.
Manufacturing silicon is a long pipeline - and in the world of AI, one year of capability gap isn't something you can afford. You build a SOTA model into your chips, and by the time you get those chips, it's outperformed at its tasks by open weights models half their size.
Now, if AI advances somehow ground to a screeching halt, with model upgrades coming out every 4 years, not every 4 months? Maybe it'll be viable. As is, it's a waste of silicon.