Sam Altman-backed chip startup hires Apple veteran

Allegrucci worked at Apple for 17 years, where he oversaw the development of more than 30 SoCs that replaced Intel chips in iPhones and Macs. In his new role as head of hardware engineering he will head up Rain AI’s efforts to create energy-efficient hardware products that allow customers to better deploy and productise AI.

Rain AI's mission is to create accelerator solutions for AI inference and training using novel compute-in-memory (CIM) technology, RISC-V processing cores, and specialised machine learning model optimisation tools.

Companies such as Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung are also researchingCIM, which promises more efficiency but still faces questions around economic viability and environmental impact. However, Rain AI believes its tech can dramatically reduce the energy consumption of the process.

“Our novel compute-in-memory technology will help unlock the true potential of today’s generative AI models, and get us one step closer to running the fastest, cheapest, and most advanced AI models anywhere,” Rain AI Chief Executive Officer William Passo said in a statement.

Rain AI is backed by investors including Sam Altman, Dan Gross, Grep VC, and Y Combinator.