Groq, an AI Chip Startup, Establishes New Division and Acquires Definitive Intelligence

By Maggie Last updated Mar 2, 2024

Groq, a pioneering startup specializing in accelerating generative AI models through advanced chip technology, has set its sights on both enterprise and public sector applications.

In a strategic move, Groq unveiled the creation of a new division named Groq Systems, aimed at significantly broadening its customer base and developer community. This division will cater to organizations, including governmental agencies, seeking to integrate Groq’s cutting-edge chips into their existing data centers or construct new ones utilizing Groq processors.

As part of this expansion, Groq has acquired Definitive Intelligence, a prominent Palo Alto-based company renowned for its business-centric AI solutions such as chatbots, data analytics tools, and documentation builders. Sunny Madra, CEO of Definitive Intelligence, now heads GroqCloud, the cloud platform of Groq, providing comprehensive hardware documentation, code samples, and self-serve API access to the company’s cloud-hosted accelerators.

Jonathan Ross, co-founder and CEO of Groq, emphasized the company’s commitment to democratizing the AI landscape in a press release, stating, “At Groq, we’re dedicated to fostering an AI economy that is accessible and affordable for visionaries everywhere. We are thrilled to welcome Sunny and his team from Definitive Intelligence onboard to help us realize this vision… Their expertise in AI solutions and strategic market approaches, coupled with their commitment to knowledge-sharing, perfectly aligns with our mission.”

Madra, who co-founded Definitive Intelligence with Gavin Sherry in 2022, previously co-launched Autonomic, a cloud platform for interconnecting mobility systems, which was acquired by Ford in 2018.

Definitive Intelligence boasts a range of business-oriented GenAI products, including OpenAssistants, a suite of open-source libraries for AI chatbot development, and Advisor, a visualization tool interfacing with enterprise and public databases. Pioneer, one of Definitive’s flagship offerings, is an autonomous data science agent tailored for diverse data analytics tasks, including predictive modeling.

Before the acquisition, Definitive Intelligence had secured $25.5 million in venture capital funding.

Madra highlighted the critical role of high-speed inference in generative AI, stating, “The importance of high-speed inference in generative AI is only now being fully recognized. At Groq, we are equipping developers with the speed, low latency, and efficiency required to fulfill the potential of generative AI.”

Groq, emerging from stealth mode in 2016, is pioneering the development of an LPU (Language Processing Unit) inference engine. The company asserts that its LPU can power existing large language models akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4 at ten times the speed.

Jonathan Ross, known for his contribution to inventing Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a custom AI accelerator chip for model training and execution, spearheads Groq’s innovative endeavors.

The acquisition of Definitive Intelligence marks Groq’s second strategic acquisition following Maxeler Technologies, a firm specializing in high-performance compute and AI infrastructure solutions, in 2022. With the competitive landscape for custom AI chips intensifying, Groq appears resolute in establishing a dominant position, signaling potential future acquisitions to solidify its market presence.