AI Startup Etched Secures $120 Million to Challenge Nvidia with Specialized Chip

Etched's Sohu chip, designed solely for transformer models, promises greater efficiency and lower costs compared to Nvidia's GPUs.

Etched was founded by Harvard dropouts Gavin Uberti and Chris Zhu, along with Robert Wachen and Mark Ross.
The Sohu chip is an ASIC specifically optimized for transformer models, claiming superior performance and energy efficiency.
Etched's approach involves removing unnecessary hardware components to streamline operations for transformer models.
Investors include Peter Thiel, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, and Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt.
Etched plans to launch the Sohu Developer Cloud for customers to preview and interact with the chip.