“Graphcore will join SoftBank Group to build the next generation of AI compute,” says CEO Nigel Toon, “we are part of the delivery behind a very grand vision.”
Although it raised $700 million and was valued at over $2.5 billion at one time, Graphcore had sales of $2.7 million for a loss of $205 million in 2022, the last year for which figures are available.
Backers include Microsoft, OpenAI’s co-founder Ilya Sutskever, Molten Ventures, Atomico and Baillie Gifford.
Toon and CTO Simon Knowles are staying on after the sale.