Micron has acquired FWDNXT, a machine learning software and hardware startup that spun out of Purdue. Micron is integrating FWDNXT's artificial intelligence hardware and software technology with its advanced memory to explore deep learning solutions for data analytics, particularly in IoT and edge computing. Purdue provided the entrepreneurial resources to help me achieve my vision of taking our work on machine learning and deep learning technology to a much wider audience where we can have a bigger impact," said Eugenio Culurciello, Micron fellow and chief machine learning architect. "Micron has the leadership in memory, long history of innovation and drive to deliver power and performance capabilities that address the most complex and demanding edge applications at scale." Culurciello founded FWDNXT while working as an associate professor in Purdue's College of Engineering. Based in the Purdue Research Park, FWDNXT designed next-generation hardware and software for deep learning aimed at enabling computers to understand the world in the same way humans do. Culurciello worked closely with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to secure and develop an intellectual property rights strategy for the AI technology that he developed at Purdue, which Micron licenses today. The FWDNXT acquisition is another strong show of confidence by industry in Purdue technology designed to make a difference for Indiana and beyond," said Brooke Beier, vice president of the Office of Technology Commercialization.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Technology that combines machine learning with artificial intelligence from Purdue University has taken its next giant leap toward powering more Internet of Things and edge computing devices. FWDNXT, a software and hardware startup that spun out of Purdue, was acquired in October by Micron Technology Inc., an industry leader in innovative memory and storage solutions. Micron is integrating FWDNXT's artificial intelligence hardware and software technology with its advanced memory to explore deep learning solutions for data analytics, particularly in IoT and edge computing. "Purdue provided the entrepreneurial resources to help me achieve my vision of taking our work on machine learning and deep learning technology to a much wider audience where we can have a bigger impact," said Eugenio Culurciello, Micron fellow and chief machine learning architect. "Micron has the leadership in memory, long history of innovation and drive to deliver power and performance capabilities that address the most complex and demanding edge applications at scale."

I did a double-take last week when Micron Technology, one of the world's largest memory chip makers, acquired artificial intelligence hardware and software startup Fwdnxt. The move could be very interesting. If it bears fruit, Fwdnxt could bring Micron into direct competition with partners such as Intel and Nvidia, as Micron believes that memory and AI computing are converging into the same architecture. But it's no accident that one of the people at Micron in charge of this project is Steve Pawlowski, a former Intel chip architect who holds dozens of patents. Pawlowski is now vice president of advanced computing solutions at Micron.

Micron Technology introduced what it claims is the world's fastest solid state drive (SSD), and also announced the acquisition of FWDNXT (pronounced "forward next"), a startup that specializes in neural networking with a product lineup that includes a series of inference engine modules based on Xilinx FPGAs. The announcements were made at the Micron Insight conference held at Pier 27 in San Francisco. The conference focused on how to accelerate intelligent systems by improving data access and analysis speed in edge devices. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in his opening remarks at the conference that the company shipped 6 million wafers (including DRAM/3D XPoint/NAND) in fiscal year 2019, which translates into roughly 3 billion solutions for game systems, mobile phones, Internet of things applications, smart factories, and more. Sumit Sadana, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Micron, then unveiled several heavyweight products at the conference.

Micron has a habit of building interesting research prototypes that offer a vague hope of commercialization for the sheer purpose of learning how to make its own memory and storage subsystem approaches more tuned to next generation applications. We saw this a few years ago with the Automata processor, which was a neuromorphic inspired bit of hardware that focused on large-scale pattern recognition. That project has since folded internally and moved into a privately funded effort from a startup aiming to make it market ready, which is to say that it has all but disappeared from view since that was a couple of years ago. There is more here for anyone interested in the Automata architecture, but for those curious about why Micron wants to get into the accelerator business with one-off silicon projects like that or its newly announced deep learning accelerator (DLA) for inference, it's far less about commercial success than it is learning how to tune memory and storage systems for AI on custom accelerators. In fact, the market viability of such a chip would be a delightful bonus since the real value is getting a firsthand understanding of what deep learning applications need out of memory and storage subsystems.

Computer chipmaker and storage company Micron Technology Inc. is pitching its hardware for artificial intelligence workloads after acquiring a startup called FWDNXT. The company announced the acquisition at its annual Micron Insight conference in San Francisco today, describing FWDNXT as a provider of AI hardware and software for deep learning, which is a subset of AI that tries to mimic the way the human brain solves problems. Micron's plan is to integrate FWDNXT's technology with its own, optimized flash memory products to create what it says will be a "comprehensive AI development platform." "FWDNXT is an architecture designed to create fast-time-to-market edge AI solutions through an extremely easy to use software framework with broad modeling support and flexibility," Micron Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana said in a statement. "FWDNXT's five generations of machine learning inference engine development and neural network algorithms, combined with Micron's deep memory expertise, unlocks new power and performance capabilities to enable innovation for the most complex and demanding edge applications."

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced a powerful new set of high-performance hardware and software tools for deep learning applications with the acquisition of FWDNXT, a software and hardware startup. When combined with advanced Micron memory, FWDNXT's (pronounced "forward next") artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software technology enables Micron to explore deep learning solutions required for data analytics, particularly in IoT and edge computing. With this acquisition, Micron is integrating compute, memory, tools and software into a comprehensive AI development platform. This platform in turn provides the key building blocks required to explore innovative memory optimized for AI workloads. "FWDNXT is an architecture designed to create fast-time-to-market edge AI solutions through an extremely easy to use software framework with broad modeling support and flexibility," said Micron Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MICRON INSIGHT -- Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced a powerful new set of high-performance hardware and software tools for deep learning applications with the acquisition of FWDNXT, a software and hardware startup. When combined with advanced Micron memory, FWDNXT's (pronounced "forward next") artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software technology enables Micron to explore deep learning solutions required for data analytics, particularly in IoT and edge computing. With this acquisition, Micron is integrating compute, memory, tools and software into a comprehensive AI development platform. This platform in turn provides the key building blocks required to explore innovative memory optimized for AI workloads. "FWDNXT is an architecture designed to create fast-time-to-market edge AI solutions through an extremely easy to use software framework with broad modeling support and flexibility," said Micron Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MICRON INSIGHT -- Micron Technology, Inc. (MU), today announced a powerful new set of high-performance hardware and software tools for deep learning applications with the acquisition of FWDNXT, a software and hardware startup. When combined with advanced Micron memory, FWDNXT's (pronounced "forward next") artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and software technology enables Micron to explore deep learning solutions required for data analytics, particularly in IoT and edge computing. With this acquisition, Micron is integrating compute, memory, tools and software into a comprehensive AI development platform. This platform in turn provides the key building blocks required to explore innovative memory optimized for AI workloads. "FWDNXT is an architecture designed to create fast-time-to-market edge AI solutions through an extremely easy to use software framework with broad modeling support and flexibility," said Micron Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana.