Raja Koduri joins Tenstorrent’s Board of Directors

Not long ago, we reported on Raja Koduri’s departure from Intel to embark on his own entrepreneurial journey. Although the nature of the AI company Koduri intends to establish remains unclear, Tom’s Hardware reports that Twitter user @SquashBionic discovered Raja Koduri has joined the board of directors at Tenstorrent.

Tenstorrent is an emerging Canadian chip company that primarily develops AI accelerators and processors based on the RISC-V architecture. Like many mainstream chip companies, they focus on design, leaving manufacturing to foundries. For instance, the chips on their Grayskull accelerator card are fabricated using GlobalFoundries’ 12nm process technology.

Of course, the factors influencing Raja Koduri’s decision to join Tenstorrent likely extend beyond the company’s business and include its team. Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 by Ljubisa Bajic, a seasoned engineer who previously worked at AMD for many years. In 2020, following his departure from Intel, veteran engineer Jim Keller became Tenstorrent’s CTO. In January of this year, Jim Keller was promoted to CEO, while Ljubisa Bajic assumed the role of CTO. Considering Raja Koduri’s past experience in significant roles at AMD and Intel, it’s difficult to discount the influence of old friends in this collaboration.

However, joining the board of directors doesn’t necessarily imply that Raja Koduri will be directly involved in the development of a specific processor or accelerator card. His work may be more closely tied to the company’s growth strategy and objectives. All in all, we can now anticipate not only the establishment of a new company by this industry veteran but also the impact he may have on Tenstorrent.