Ambitious Axelera aiming to bring edge AI to the masses

“It’s like using a Formula 1 engine in a Fiat 500 because you have nothing else,” says Fabrizio Del Maffeo, describing the existing artificial-intelligence solutions available to small and medium enterprises. “SMEs are the heart of European business. Most of them could greatly benefit from AI. Unfortunately, they’re held back in applying it for the simple reason that it’s too expensive and too inefficient. Existing solutions based on Nvidia GPUs, for example, cost many hundreds of euros and most SMEs really don’t need all that computing power.”

With his new Eindhoven-based startup, Axelera AI, Del Maffeo wants to lower the AI threshold for SMEs by supplying a cost-effective range of plug-and-play products based on its own chip. “But we’re not a chip company,” he stresses. “Our target customers aren’t looking for a chip. AI isn’t a hardware-driven market; it’s a market driven by data, by data scientists, by software engineers – and software engineers need more than a chip. We’re delivering complete solutions, consisting of hardware and a software stack. Our vision is that customers buy our chip in a Mini PCI Express module, for example, which they can plug into their system board to take care of the AI part of their application.”