AMD buys chip startup that hardwires AI models into its silicon

AMD acquired Taalas, a startup that designs specialized AI chips hardwired for specific models rather than being general-purpose like traditional GPUs (graphics processing units, processors optimized for parallel computing). These custom chips promise to run inference (the process of using a trained AI model to generate outputs) thousands of times faster and at lower cost than standard GPUs, though they sacrifice flexibility by working with only one AI model at a time.