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By Stephen Nellis
(Reuters) - Tenstorrent, a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence chip startup founded by Apple and Intel veterans, said it had won a deal with the Japanese government to help train up to 200 Japanese chip designers at its U.S. offices over five years.
The contract announced on Tuesday, under which $50 million will be divvied up among Tenstorrent and Japan's Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center, is part of Japan's effort to reinvigorate its semiconductor industry. The country controlled half or more of the global chips market through the 1980s but has less than a tenth of the market today.
The centerpiece of Japan's efforts is Rapidus, a contract chipmaker with billions of dollars in government backing aiming to build advanced semiconductors in Japan and start mass production by 2027. But to succeed, the Rapidus factory will need to find customers who want their chip designs manufactured there.
The deal on Tuesday is aimed at creating those future customers. Tenstorrent last year partnered with Rapidus to develop designs that can be made in its factory, and bringing Japanese engineers to its U.S. offices is aimed at spreading that knowledge throughout Japan's chip industry.
"I think Japan's actions and their investments have clearly indicated that they want to be in more control of their own future," Tenstorrent Chief Customer Officer David Bennett told Reuters in an interview.
Starting in April 2025, Japanese engineers will work alongside Tenstorrent executives such as Jim Keller and Wei-Han Lien, both of whom created chips for Apple, and Yasuo Ishii, a veteran of Arm Holdings, to design AI chips.
While Tenstorrent will retain the chip blueprints created under the deal, those blueprints will be made using RISC-V, a free and open chip design technology. The visiting Japanese engineers will be able to use their experience in the U.S. to create their own RISC-V designs in Japan when they return.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Jamie Freed)
