Nvidia Corp. has agreed to pay $6 billion to license artificial intelligence models from Poolside and will extend job offers to more than 100 employees, according to people familiar with the situation.
The startup also received an additional $1 billion investment from Nvidia at a valuation of $12 billion, not including those funds, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. Poolside will keep operating independently, they said.
Existing backers will receive a payout from the Nvidia funds, according to the people.
Representatives for Nvidia and Poolside didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The Newcomer technology newsletter first reported this news.
The transaction is the latest in a flood of deals by the world's largest publicly traded company, which is pouring cash into the AI industry. Nvidia, the dominant maker of AI processors, is trying to speed the uptake of the technology across the economy. It regards the effort as vital to guaranteeing future demand for its chips and computer systems.
Nvidia has recently turned its focus to supporting open source models, which can be freely used and customized by developers. The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker is seeking to make the technology more widely available and avoid a concentration of the products at just a few large companies. Nvidia offers a variety of technology beyond chips, including AI models, data and other software developed in-house.
Poolside, which has offices in the US and Paris, has produced models that focus on automating computer coding, particularly for government and defense software.
The structure of the transaction bears some similarities to Nvidia's acquisition of most of the chip startup Groq. According to reports, it paid about $20 billion for a nonexclusive license to use that company's designs and took on most of its employees and founders.
Such deals have been criticized by lawmakers, who see them as an end-run to merger reviews.
https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-pay-poolside-6-billion-181448803.html
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