Microsoft-backed startup d-Matrix launches its first AI chip

Silicon Valley startup d-Matrix on Tuesday said it is shipping its first AI chip aimed at delivering services such as chat bots and video generators.

D-Matrix, which has raised more than $160 million in funding to date, including from Microsoft's venture capital arm, said early customers are testing sample chips, with full shipments expected to pick up next year.

Santa Clara, California company did not name any specific customers, but said Super Micro Computer will sell servers that can hold d-Matrix chips.

D-Matrix aims to complement AI chip giants such as Nvidia , whose chips are used to train AI systems on huge amounts of data. Once systems are trained, d-Matrix chips aim to handle huge numbers of requests from end users of systems, in a step called inference.

D-Matrix's chip is specifically designed to help handle requests from a lot of users at once on a single chip, even as those users continue to ask AI system for new responses or tweaks to a video that y've asked system to generate.

"We are getting a lot of interest in video use cases where we have customers coming and saying, 'Hey, look, we want to generate videos, and we want a collection of users, all interacting with ir own respective video,'" said Sid Sheth, d-Martix's chief executive. 

It is worth noting that development comes shortly after tech giant hosted its Ignite 2024 conference wherein company announced more avenues for its generative AI-based assistant, Copilot. Microsoft announced that Copilot Actions in Microsoft 365 is now available in private preview. company says that this feature will enable users to complete every day tasks using Copilot.

"Copilot Actions, now in private preview, enable anyone to automate everyday tasks with simple, fill-in--blank prompts, wher it’s getting a daily summary of meeting actions in Microsoft Teams, compiling weekly reports or getting an email upon return from vacation that summarizes missed meetings, chats and emails," company wrote.

In dition to this, company also announced introduction of Azure AI Foundary, which is aimed at giving companies access to all existing Azure AI services and Azure AI Agent  Service to name a few.