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SAN JOSE, CALIF. – December 17, 2019 – A year that saw semiconductor startup Tachyum make substantial progress in product development, financial positioning and expanded executive leadership, has ensured that the company remains on schedule to introduce Prodigy, the world’s first Universal Processor, to worldwide markets in 2021.
Prodigy is a 64-core Universal Processor that outperforms the fastest Xeon processor on data center workloads, at 10x less processor power and 3x lower cost. Product development progress made in 2019 places Prodigy into a phase of physical design and integration of peripheral IP into the final product, with product tape-out slated for late 2020. One key milestone reached in the past year was the successful deployment of Linux OS and TensorFlow on the Prodigy Universal Processor architecture. Running Linux on a simulated Prodigy platform signaled that the chip can be used for all compute tasks, as opposed to current special-purpose chips or accelerators with limited applications and limited market viability.
“Designing a high-performance/ultra-low power universal processor is not for the faint of heart,” said Dr. Radoslav Danilak, Tachyum CEO. “However, the Prodigy core’sinnovative architecture and its simplicity have been major factors in mitigating this challenge. Even though we are starting to develop strong relationships with key early adopters of Prodigy in the US, the EU, and across Asia, what I really look forward to is Prodigy itself demonstrating its game-changing performance in the first half of 2021 as it enters the marketplace. I am looking forward to letting the product speak for itself.”
Tachyum’s corporate progress in 2019 included successful completion of a $25 million Series A funding round led by private equity investor IPM Group, with participation of the Slovak Government. The funding is being used to support Tachyum’s R&D and software development efforts both in Slovakia and the United States, leveraging regional talent and resources of Slovakia, the European Union and Silicon Valley. In addition to over 50 high-talent professionals on board in 2019, Tachyum also expanded its senior management ranks with the hiring of Kiran Malwanker as Vice President of System Engineering and Elena Zokhidova as Senior Director of Finance. Prominent business leader and former advisor to Angela Merkel Dr. Kurt Lauk joined Tachyum’s Board of Advisors this past year as well.
“Having just returned from a working trip to Bratislava, I can say without reservation that the team over there has matured into a formidable compiler and AI center of design excellence,” said Tachyum co- founder Igor Shevlyakov. “It is going to be a pleasure to continue working with the talented group of professionals that comprise Tachyum’s Slovakian R&D team.”
“With a groundbreaking product like Prodigy imminent, Tachyum needs to position itself for sustained growth,” said Elena Zokhidova. “Toward that end, I have been working with the senior management and the Tachyum team to develop world-class accounting, management, and personnel procedures, which will sustain the company through its revenue growth phase, on the way to a successful IPO. I am both lucky and excited to be involved in such a world-changing mission.”
To ensure that Tachyum is best able to satisfy the performance needs of data center, AI and HPC workloads, Tachyum joined several consortiums this past year. The company joined the Compute Express Link (CXL) Consortium, a group of companies dedicated to advancing a new, open-industry standard interconnect; and the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), a 700+ member association committed to advancing the non-proprietary PCI technology to yield a reliable, scalable solution for high-speed I/O in numerous market applications. Joining these groups showcases Tachyum’s commitment and leadership to the industry, in addition to ensuring that Prodigy meets the needs of the widest range of applications upon its launch.
Tachyum moved to new offices in Silicon Valley located within walking distance from Intel, AMD and nVidia headquarters. The large offices can accommodate 80 employees, includes a private data center and labs for testing Prodigy chips and systems, including HPC and AI supercomputers.
The company was highly regarded for advances made throughout the year with recognition of Tachyum and Dr. Danilak by major industry publications, associations and government institutions. The year began with Dr. Danilak being awarded the Pribina Cross, First Class by Slovakian President Andrej Kiska for innovations in data storage and processing at a state awards ceremony. Dr. Danilak was also named IT Person of the Year 2019 at IT GALA, the most prestigious annual event of the Slovak information technology and telecommunications communities. Additionally, Tachyum was named one of the “50 Innovative Companies to Watch 2019” by The Silicon Review, the world’s most-trusted online and print community for business and technology professionals and Tachyum was selected among “Most Valuable Brands of the Year” as an emerging company by IndustryWired Magazine.
Tachyum is now successfully engaged with US, European and Asian customers and partners. During a recent visit to Hong Kong and Shenzen ,China Tachyum expanded relationships with potential customers, partners and investors in the data center looking to introduce the company’s Prodigy Universal Processor Chip as a transformational asset.
“2019 was a very good year for both corporate and product development,” said Dr. Danilak. “I look forward to continuing the great success we have achieved this past year and leveraging into even greater success in the coming years. This is the best team I have ever worked with. For all of us, it’s a mission, not just a job. We are fully committed to changing the world with Prodigy.”
Prodigy simultaneously delivers industry-leading performance on conventional data center applications, Convolutional Neural Net and High-Performance Computing workloads. Since data centers provision the number of servers to handle peak customer demand, during off-peak hours, Tachyum enables data center operators with Prodigy to spin up what would otherwise be idle servers to handle AI and HPC workloads, Capital Expenditure Free, since the servers are already bought and paid for. Prodigy’s best-in-breed performance across multiple domains of computing will deliver a major sea state change to the world’s data centers, which currently consume over 2% of the world’s electricity and whose capacity is doubling every 5-7 years. Prodigy-powered servers turn traditional data centers into Universal Computing Centers, with low cost Big-AI and/or High-Performance Computing available to the general public, on demand.
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Named for the Greek prefix “tachy,” meaning speed, combined with the suffix “-um,” indicating an element (e.g. lithium), Tachyum is meant to evoke the notion of “an element of speed”. Tachyum emerged from stealth mode in 2017 to engineer disruptive intelligent information processing products. Tachyum’s founders have a track record of solving problems caused by device physics in semiconductors, to deliver transformational products to global markets, and are backed by IPM Growth, the Central & Eastern European venture capital platform, as Tachyum’s lead investor.