Chipmaker Hailo Raises $120M and Unveils New On-Device Generative AI Accelerator
AI chipmaker Hailo has raised $120 million in an extension to its $136 million Series C funding round initially led by Poalim Equity and Gil Agmon. The funding news accompanied the debut of the new Hailo-10 chip, designed to accelerate the operation of generative AI models on-edge, meaning for devices that don’t rely on cloud connectivity.
Hailo Edge
Hailo builds chips specially designed for embedding AI in on-edge devices that don’t always have internet access. That includes cars, remote smart cameras, and industrial robots. Instead of sending processing requests to the cloud, Hailo’s chips run everything on the device, accommodating the need for lower power and memory demands. The Hailo-10 chip is an accelerator built especially for generative AI models. Devices with the chip can efficiently run large language models (LLMs) like Llama 2 and synthetic image models like Stable Diffusion. Generative AI processing at the edge could solve challenges around privacy, latency, connectivity, and sustainability compared to using cloud-based generative AI services.
“We designed Hailo-10 to seamlessly integrate GenAI capabilities into users’ daily lives, freeing users from cloud network constraints,” Hailo CEO Orr Danon said. “This empowers them to utilize chatbots, copilots, and other emerging content generation tools with unparalleled flexibility and immediacy, enhancing productivity and enriching lives.”
Hailo boasted that Hailo-10 has a 40 tera-operations per second performance potential. It builds on the foundation laid by the Hailo-8 AI accelerators and the Hailo-15 AI vision processors, meaning there will be cross-chip compatibility, and multiple devices can be integrated together. Notably, it outpaces competing integrated neural processing units from Inte and other brands. The new chip is set to start shipping this quarter.
“As GenAI on the edge becomes immersive, the focus turns to handling large LLMs in the smallest possible power envelope — essentially less than five watts,” Danon said. “Whether users employ GenAI to automate real-time translation or summarization services, generate software code, or images and videos from text prompts, Hailo-10 lets them do it directly on their PCs or other edge systems, without straining the CPU or draining the battery.”
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