00:00The chip startup SambaNova Systems has raised one billion dollars and 11 billion dollar valuation.
00:05It's the latest example of investors betting on rising demand for infrastructure tied to AI.
00:10Bloomberg deals reporter Ryan Gold broke this story and he joins us now.
00:14Ryan, great to see you. What are the details?
00:15Yeah, so SambaNova, as we've spoken about on this program many times already,
00:19is a foremost player in and around AI inference.
00:23Inference being, you know, decoding as it's known in the industry.
00:27The query that's put into the existing model like OpenAI is ChatGPT or AnthropXclawed.
00:33This is a company that really is trying to sort of lower the cost.
00:37Their focus is on lowering the cost per token as it's known by deploying the specialized chip,
00:41which works in tandem with NVIDIA's sort of existing chips in those data centers across the world that we all
00:46know well.
00:48SambaNova is one of many players, I should add, that is trying to do this technology.
00:52But this 11 billion dollar valuation is clearly a sign of strength in and around its business model.
00:57It's clearly a sign that there's plenty more to come with General Atlantic leading the round.
01:00Right, plenty of private equity backing there.
01:03So it underscores, one, you want cheaper access to inference, but two, just the demand for chips.
01:08I mean, Broadcom, Apple, we're learning now more details of that deal and just how large it is.
01:12Yeah, you know, we were joking actually just before we came on air that, you know, Broadcom was once upon
01:16a time known for doing these big M&A deals,
01:18like VMware, you know, the tune of $60 billion.
01:20Now they're doing chip partnerships, which, you know, to the tune of $30 billion with Apple,
01:25which, you know, you see Broadcom shares rising this morning on those headlines.
01:29I think what that really is about for both companies is a sign that the administration,
01:33or a sign to the administration that they are listening to Trump's Made in America agenda.
01:38I think that's really important when you think about what Apple is trying to achieve as far as its own
01:42chip-making ambitions go in the U.S.
01:44And I should add that both companies have been sort of strong partners for many, many years.
01:49Broadcom has for a long time supplied Apple with chips in and around sort of advanced radio, wireless, Wi-Fi,
01:56and so on.
01:56So this is kind of more of the same, and I think Broadcom and Apple investors should both be pleased
02:00with this development.
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