Recently, AMD, the world's leading semiconductor company, announced that it will acquire Finland's artificial intelligence startup Silo AI for $665 million in all-cash. This move marks an important step in AMD's strategic expansion in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to enhance its AI chip capabilities and software development capabilities to cope with the increasingly fierce competition in the global AI market.
AMD said in a press release that the acquisition of Silo AI is an important strategic step for its open standards-based and strong partnership with the global AI ecosystem. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Silo AI is one of Europe's largest private AI labs with operations across Europe and North America, focusing on providing end-to-end AI-driven solutions for enterprises. The company has extensive experience and strength in AI model development, platform building, and solution delivery, and its customers include well-known companies such as Philips, Rolls-Royce, and Unilever.
Silo AI not only owns the SiloGen model platform, but also creates state-of-the-art open-source multilingual large language models (LLMs) on AMD platforms, such as Poro and Viking. The launch of these models is a further testament to Silo AI's innovation and leadership in the field of AI technology. In addition, Silo AI is a pioneer in large-scale language model training on LUMI, Europe's fastest supercomputer, training the EU's most advanced open-source language model with university collaborators.
"In every industry, enterprises are looking for fast and effective ways to develop and deploy AI solutions to meet their unique business needs," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president, Artificial Intelligence Group, AMD. Silo AI's trusted team of AI experts and extensive experience, including state-of-the-art LLMs built on AMD platforms, will further accelerate our AI strategy and drive the building and rapid implementation of AI solutions for our global customers."
Pictured: AMD spent $665 million to acquire Finland startup Silo AI
Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Silo AI, also expressed his anticipation for the acquisition: "At Silo AI, our mission has been to build an AI flagship company from the very beginning. Today's announcement is the logical next step in this pursuit, as we join forces with AMD to shape the future of AI computing. We look forward to being part of AMD to further expand our reach and develop enterprise solutions and AI models to address the most complex challenges facing today's large-scale deployment of AI."
The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2024. Following the acquisition, Peter Sarlin will continue to lead the Silo AI team, reporting to Vamsi Boppana as part of AMD's AI Group. AMD said the addition of Silo AI will enhance its AI chip capabilities and software development capabilities, help improve the development and deployment of AMD-based AI models, and help potential customers build complex AI models with AMD's chips.
The acquisition is also the latest in a series of expansion moves by AMD in the AI space. Over the past 12 months, AMD has invested more than $125 million in more than a dozen AI companies and acquired several AI software companies, including Mipsology and Nod.ai. Through these investments and acquisitions, AMD aims to expand its presence in the AI space and provide customers with a more comprehensive range of AI solutions and services.
