Qualcomm is in advanced talks to acquire Tenstorrent — the AI chip startup led by legendary chip architect Jim Keller — for between $8 billion and $10 billion, tripling the company's valuation from $3.2 billion just one year ago. Neither company has publicly confirmed the negotiations, which were first reported by Reuters.
Tenstorrent designs AI accelerators built on the open RISC-V processor standard, positioning them as a direct challenger to Nvidia's proprietary CUDA-based GPU ecosystem. The company's software stack, TT-Metalium, is released under a permissive MIT open-source license, lowering the barrier for developers to adopt non-Nvidia AI hardware.
For Qualcomm — primarily known for mobile chips — acquiring Tenstorrent would represent a major bet on AI data centers and an attempt to erode Nvidia's near-monopoly on AI compute. Keller, who previously designed chips at Apple, AMD, and Intel, is widely regarded as one of the most consequential chip architects alive today.