DARPA awards $45M to Cerebras and Ranovus for ultra-fast optical chip connections

Cerebras Systems and Ranovus secure a major $45 million contract from DARPA to develop ultra-fast, power-efficient optical chip connections. This collaboration between the Silicon Valley AI chip maker and Canadian optical networking startup aims to create technology that’s 150 times faster while using 90% less power than current solutions. The partnership represents a significant advancement in the competitive AI chip market where faster chip-to-chip communication is becoming increasingly critical.

The big picture: Cerebras is leveraging its unique dinner plate-sized chips to challenge Nvidia‘s dominance in the AI hardware market while preparing for an IPO.

• Unlike competitors who use postage stamp-sized chips clustered together, Cerebras produces foot-wide processors that it claims can outperform Nvidia’s approach.
• The company has already filed for an initial public offering, positioning itself as a serious contender in the rapidly evolving AI chip landscape.

Key innovation: The DARPA-funded project will integrate Ranovus’ light-based networking technology directly with Cerebras’ massive AI chips.

• Ranovus specializes in optical connections that use light rather than electrical signals to transfer information between chips, resulting in faster speeds and lower power consumption.
• The technology aims to achieve connections that are “150 times faster and uses three watts instead of 30,” according to Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman.

What they’re saying: Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman emphasized the transformative potential of the partnership with DARPA.

• “That’s why we brought the idea to DARPA. They have a reputation for providing funding for extremely difficult, extremely transformative projects,” Feldman told Reuters.
• Ranovus CEO Hamid Arabzadeh revealed that the collaboration will involve cutting-edge technology: “What we plan to do together is something very different… There are new things that we have developed in the past year that we’re going to bring into this project, which we haven’t publicly announced.”

Industry context: The race to integrate optical connections with computing chips has triggered substantial investment activity across the tech sector.

• Ranovus has previously produced demonstration chips with Advanced Micro Devices and Taiwan‘s MediaTek, building a track record in optical chip integration.
• The challenge of creating faster chip-to-chip connections is becoming increasingly important as AI systems grow larger and more complex.