AI chip company led by legendary CPU architect Jim Keller. RISC-V open architecture challenges Nvidia CUDA. $2.6B valuation, $693M raised. Founded 2016 in Santa Clara, CA.
Tenstorrent is an AI chip company designing high-performance AI accelerators for training and inference workloads. Founded in 2016 and led by legendary CPU architect Jim Keller (architect of AMD Zen, Apple A4/A5, Intel Pentium Pro, Tesla Autopilot), Tenstorrent takes a radically different approach from Nvidia — its architecture is based on open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture, free from the licensing fees and proprietary lock-in of CUDA. The company's flagship product is the Tenstorrent Gemstone AI accelerator family, paired with the open-source PyBuda compiler stack that allows AI workloads to be ported from CUDA-based environments. Strategic investors include Samsung, Hyundai Motor Group, and BlackBerry — suggesting broad application in consumer electronics and automotive AI. The RISC-V open architecture positions Tenstorrent as a key player in the global push for AI compute sovereignty and lower-cost AI infrastructure alternatives to Nvidia's dominance.