Exclusive: Nvidia buying AI chip startup Groq's assets for about $20 billion in its largest deal on record (www.cnbc.com)

Nvidia has announced its largest acquisition to date, purchasing AI chip startup Groq for approximately $20 billion. Founded in 2016 by prior creators of Google's tensor processing unit (TPU), Groq specializes in high-performance accelerator chips aimed at enhancing AI workloads—an area where it competes directly with Nvidia. The acquisition comes just three months after Groq's valuation soared to $6.9 billion following a significant funding round led by major investors, including Blackrock and Samsung. This deal is significant for the AI/ML community as it solidifies Nvidia's position as a heavyweight in the AI accelerator market, aligning with the growing demand for technologies that optimize large language model performance. With Groq's innovative chip designs now part of Nvidia's arsenal, the company can potentially accelerate its product offerings in an increasingly competitive landscape, particularly against alternatives like Google's TPU. Notably, Groq had been generating momentum in its business, targeting $500 million in revenue this year, reflecting the robust market for AI acceleration technologies which are crucial for inference tasks.