The AI edge chip market is on fire, kindled by 'staggering' VC funding

Chips to perform AI inference on edge devices such as smartphones is a red-hot market, even years into the field's emergence, attracting more and more startups and more and more venture funding, according to a prominent chip analyst firm covering the field. "There are more new startups continuing to come out, and continuing to try to differentiate," says Mike Demler, Senior Analyst with The Linley Group, which publishes the widely read Microprocessor Report, in an interview with ZDNet via phone. Linley Group produces two conferences each year in Silicon Valley hosting numerous startups, the Spring and Fall Processor Forum, with an emphasis in recent years on those AI startups. At the most recent event, held in October, both virtually and in-person, in Santa Clara, California, the conference was packed with startups such Flex Logix, Hailo Technologies, Roviero, BrainChip, Syntiant, Untether AI, Expedera, and Deep AI giving short talks about their chip designs. Demler and team regularly assemble a research report titled the Guide to Processors for Deep Learning, the latest version of which is expected out this month.