Nvidia Acquires Tech and Talent From Inference Chip Maker Groq

An Nvidia spokesperson confirmed Friday (Dec. 26) that the company acquired talent and tech from Groq, a maker of custom-built inference chips.

Groq said in a Wednesday (Dec. 24) blog post that it entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with chip maker Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology.

Reached by PYMNTS, an Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “We haven’t acquired Groq. We’ve taken a non-exclusive license to Groq’s IP and have hired engineering talent from Groq’s team to join us in our mission to provide world-leading accelerate computing technology.”

Groq said in its blog post that with this agreement, the companies aim to expand access to high-performance, low-cost inference.

As part of the agreement, Groq founder Jonathan Ross, Groq President Sunny Madra and other members of the Groq team will join Nvidia, according to the post.

“Groq will continue to operate as an independent company with [Groq Chief Financial Officer] Simon Edwards stepping into the role of Chief Executive Officer,” the company said in the post. “GroqCloud will continue to operate without interruption.”

Reuters reported Friday (Dec. 26) that with this deal, Nvidia acquires Groq technology and talent without acquiring the company. The report compared the deal to Meta’s hiring of the CEO of ScaleAI and Amazon’s hiring of founders of Adept AI.

Groq said in September that it was valued at $6.9 billion in a funding round in which it raised $750 million in new financing.

In a press release announcing the new financing, the company said its compute powered more than 2 million developers and Fortune 500 companies and that it was growing its global presence and playing a central role in the global deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that originated in America, a goal promoted by the White House.

“Inference is defining this era of AI, and we’re building the American infrastructure that delivers it with high speed and low cost,” Ross said in the September press release.

The valuation Groq achieved in September was more than double the one it gained about a year earlier. In August 2024, Groq was valued at $2.8 billion in a funding round in which it secured $640 million.

Ross said at the time: “We intend to make the resources available so that anyone can create cutting-edge AI products, not just the largest tech companies.”

PYMNTS reported Dec. 12 that investment and engineering resources were shifting toward inference infrastructure as companies that spent the past two years experimenting with large language models began moving those systems into live environments.