[EXCLUSIVE] Tenstorrent CEO meets Hyundai Motor execs for AI talk, tours car factory

Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller speaks at a Samsung forum in November, 2023. [NEWS1]

Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller visited Hyundai Motor's Asan, South Chungcheong factory Thursday morning to be briefed on the Korean automaker's manufacturing facilities and discuss their AI chip partnership.

Keller met with Hyundai Motor executives and engineers during his two-day visit to Korea, aiming to build on the partnership the two companies forged last year regarding AI chips for Hyundai's autonomous cars, robots and air mobility products, the executive said.

The CEO's previous stop was in Japan, where he announced that Tenstorrent had inked an agreement with Rapidus to build chips using the semiconductor manufacturer's 2-nanometer nodes.

The Toronto-based startup's CEO was also scheduled to meet with Samsung Electronics executives as well, but canceled those meetings due to scheduling issues.

“We came here to talk to investors and catch up with some engineers at Hyundai,” Keller told the Korea JoongAng Daily in Pangyo, Gyeonggi on Thursday.

Hyundai Motor, the CEO said, has “an interest in silicon technology, autonomous driving and robots. I was quite surprised at how many different projects they have going on from airplanes, vehicles and robots.”

Tenstorrent recently set up a temporary office at Pangyo, intending to strengthen its collaboration with Korean partners. The office, Tenstorrent's sixth globally, is mostly in charge of customer service, but Keller is looking to expand its scope. That will include hiring programmers, as he was impressed with local engineering talent.

“It's just because they are really good programmers,” Keller said. “We worked with a couple of Korean companies and were really impressed, and I really liked it.”

Tenstorrent holds extensive relationship with Korean companies, mostly household names.

Tenstorrent and Samsung Electronics are longtime partners, with the AI startup becoming one of the first clients of Samsung's chip fabrication plants in Taylor, Texas and utilizing its 4-nanometer nodes.

Samsung also participated in a $100 million funding round lead by Hyundai Motor Group, which committed $50 million to the chip firm.

LG Electronics is also working with Tenstorrent to develop AI chips for its TV sets. In return, LG is providing video codec technology for the chipmaker's data center portfolio.

Keller is a renowned figure in the chip engineering world, having worked for AMD, Apple, Tesla and Intel.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]