HARDWARE & IP DIRECTORY

AI Accelerator Directory

A structured directory of AI chips, accelerators, custom silicon and IP vendors. Corporate ownership and operating status are tracked explicitly so acquired subsidiaries and discontinued vendors are not mistaken for independent competitors.

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At a glance

One-line latest status per company — updated periodically. Last refreshed: November 2026. Detailed software and benchmark maps are maintained in dedicated pages.


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IC Vendors NVIDIA, Intel, Gaudi, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, Marvell, Broadcom
Tech Giants & HPC Google, AWS, Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, Anthropic, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, Meta, Tesla
IP Vendors Arm, Synopsys, Imagination, CEVA, Cadence, VeriSilicon
Startups Cerebras, Tenstorrent, Etched, Groq, SambaNova, Mythic, Hailo, FuriosaAI, SiMa, d-Matrix, Blaize, …
Acquired / Legacy Graphcore, Kinara, Ampere Computing, Untether AI
China AI Accelerators Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Biren, Moore Threads, MetaX, Hygon, Iluvatar, Enflame, Horizon, Black Sesame

I. IC Vendors


NVIDIA — GPU / AI accelerator lineage

NVIDIA turned GPUs into the default AI training/inference substrate via CUDA (2007) and successive datacenter architectures. From Pascal/Volta Tensor Cores through Ampere and Hopper, the stack evolved into rack-scale Grace+Blackwell systems; Rubin extends that AI-factory model into 2026.

CUDA foundation (pre–Tensor Core)

Tensor Core era

Platform / rack-scale era (2024–2026)

Latest

Hopper in-depth · Hopper · Blackwell

Intel / Habana Gaudi

Intel’s AI accelerator path consolidated around Habana Labs after the 2019 acquisition. Gaudi (training) and Goya (inference) established Ethernet-centric scale-out as an alternative to proprietary GPU fabrics; Gaudi 2 broadened LLM training, and Gaudi 3 (2024) targets enterprise generative AI with OEM and cloud availability. Intel also folds AI into Xeon AMX and Arc/Flex GPUs, but Gaudi remains the dedicated datacenter accelerator brand.

Latest

AMD — Instinct AI GPUs

AMD’s datacenter AI story runs through the Instinct line on CDNA architecture (distinct from RDNA gaming GPUs), with ROCm as the software stack. MI100/MI200 established HBM-heavy training SKUs; MI300A/X (CDNA 3, 2023) brought chiplet APU/GPU designs into large LLM clusters. MI350 (CDNA 4, 2025) pushes HBM3E capacity and low-precision datatypes; MI400 / Helios rack systems headline the 2026 roadmap alongside deep hyperscaler partnerships.

Latest

Qualcomm — Hexagon NPU & Dragonfly data-center AI

Qualcomm’s AI silicon now spans mobile Hexagon NPUs in Snapdragon SoCs and a full data-center Dragonfly portfolio for agentic inference. Hexagon evolved from DSP blocks into fused scalar/vector/tensor NPUs for on-device GenAI; Cloud AI 100 was an earlier inference SKU. In Oct 2025 Qualcomm launched rack-scale Dragonfly AI200/AI250 inference accelerators, then at Investor Day Jun 2026 added AI300 with High Bandwidth Compute (HBC), the Dragonfly C1000 server CPU (Meta multi-generation agreement), and a multi-year data-center revenue push.

Latest

Samsung — Exynos NPU

Samsung integrates NPUs into Exynos mobile SoCs and builds HBM that underpins datacenter AI GPUs. Exynos NPUs scaled with each flagship for vision and on-device GenAI; Exynos 2500 (3nm GAA) was followed by Exynos 2600 — Samsung’s first 2nm GAA mobile SoC — powering Galaxy S26 with substantially higher generative-AI NPU performance and AI graphics features (ENSS).

Latest

MediaTek — Dimensity NPU

MediaTek’s Dimensity flagship line pairs Arm CPUs with successive in-house NPUs for Android on-device AI. The NPU roadmap (through 8th-gen NPU 890 on Dimensity 9400) emphasizes generative and agentic workloads—LoRA adaptation, diffusion video, and MoE LLMs—alongside the Dimensity Agentic AI Engine software path.

Latest

Marvell — custom AI ASICs & DPUs

Marvell supplies DPUs (OCTEON / ARMADA) and, increasingly, co-designed custom AI accelerators for cloud providers. Alongside Broadcom’s XPU franchise, Marvell is widely reported as a design partner on AWS Trainium/Inferentia-class and Microsoft Maia-class silicon—making it a key “picks and shovels” vendor in the custom-ASIC wave.

Latest

Broadcom — custom XPUs

Broadcom co-designs customer-specific AI accelerators (XPUs) and pairs them with Tomahawk/Jericho Ethernet switching. The model began with Google TPU generations and now spans Meta MTIA, OpenAI custom silicon, and other frontier/cloud programs—positioning Broadcom as the primary ASIC implementation partner opposite merchant GPUs.

Latest

II. Tech Giants & HPC Vendors


Google — TPU lineage

Google invented the modern custom-AI-ASIC pattern with TPU v1 (2015) for production inference, then opened Cloud TPU for external training. Each generation scaled systolic MXUs, HBM, and pod interconnect; v4/v5 pods trained many Google foundation models, while Trillium (v6e) and Ironwood (v7) address GenAI train/serve economics. Edge TPU (Coral) and Pixel Tensor are related but separate product lines.

Early generations

Split SKUs & GenAI scale-up

Related Google silicon

Latest

10 years of TPU · v6e docs · Cloud TPU · Edge TPU

Amazon AWS — Trainium & Inferentia

AWS builds first-party AI silicon for EC2: Inferentia for inference and Trainium for training, compiled via the Neuron SDK. Inferentia1/2 lowered LLM serving cost on Inf1/Inf2; Trainium1 and Trainium2 (Trn1/Trn2) plus UltraServers with NeuronLink scale-up target foundation-model training and large inference inside AWS regions—often co-designed with partners such as Marvell/Annapurna.

Latest

Microsoft — Azure Maia

Microsoft entered custom AI silicon with Azure Maia (accelerator) and Cobalt (Arm CPU) to optimize Azure OpenAI / Copilot economics. Maia 100 (5nm, advanced packaging) is co-designed for Azure AI cloud workloads with a PyTorch/ONNX Runtime software path; subsequent Maia generations are expected to deepen rack-level integration with Azure networking and cooling.

Latest

OpenAI — custom Intelligence Processors

Long dependent on NVIDIA GPUs (and Azure capacity), OpenAI moved into custom inference silicon to cut serving cost and diversify supply. Jalapeño—co-developed with Broadcom—is the first “Intelligence Processor,” optimized for LLM inference rather than general training, as the opening move in a multi-generation, multi-gigawatt Broadcom collaboration.

Latest

Anthropic — multi-hardware compute

Anthropic does not tape out a merchant chip brand; it co-designs capacity across AWS Trainium (Project Rainier), Google TPUs (Broadcom-implemented), and NVIDIA GPUs. The strategy is deliberate multi-sourcing for Claude training and serving at gigawatt scale, with long-term TPU commitments expanding through 2027+.

Latest

Apple — Neural Engine & Apple silicon AI

Apple’s on-device AI runs on the Neural Engine and, increasingly, GPU Neural Accelerators inside Apple silicon—not discrete datacenter GPUs. From A11’s first Neural Engine through M1–M4, Apple scaled unified-memory ML performance for privacy-preserving inference; M5 (2025) and M5 Pro/Max (2026) explicitly target Apple Intelligence and local LLM/creative AI workflows.

Latest

Alibaba — T-Head PPU

Alibaba’s T-Head unit designs cloud AI accelerators under the Zhenwu / PPU family for Alibaba Cloud and external customers as a domestic GPU-class alternative. After Zhenwu 810E-class SKUs, Zhenwu M890 (2026) raises HBM capacity and chip-to-chip bandwidth for agentic train/infer, paired with Panjiu AL128 servers, ICN Switch networking, and the SAIL software stack.

Latest

Baidu — Kunlunxin

Baidu’s Kunlunxin (昆仑芯) GPUs underpin ERNIE and Baidu Cloud AI services. From earlier Kunlun generations through P800-class training/inference cards, Baidu has iterated a full stack (hardware + software) as a China-domestic alternative for large-model workloads.

Latest

Tencent Cloud — Zixiao / custom AI

Tencent deploys proprietary Zixiao-class and partner AI accelerators across Tencent Cloud for recommendation, multimodal, and LLM train/infer inside its China footprint—part of a broader mix that also includes merchant GPUs where available.

Latest

Meta — MTIA

Meta’s MTIA (Meta Training and Inference Accelerator) is an in-house family for ranking, recommendation, and increasingly generative workloads at hyperscale. Built with Broadcom as implementation partner, MTIA has moved to a rapid multi-generation chiplet cadence (MTIA 300–500 class messaging) aimed at Meta’s production AI fleet rather than merchant sale.

Latest

Tesla — HW / AI inference & Dojo

Tesla designs FSD/AI inference SoCs for vehicles (HW3 → HW4/AI4 → AI5) and pursued Dojo training tiles for internal vision-model training. The vertical stack ties cars, Optimus, and data-center inference together; AI5 is the next major SoC step after AI4, with Dojo3 still on the longer training roadmap.

Latest

III. Traditional IP Vendors


Arm — Ethos NPU IP

Arm licenses Ethos NPU IP alongside Cortex CPUs for edge and IoT SoCs. The Ethos-U micro-NPU line (U55 → U65 → U85) scales MAC arrays and adds transformer operators while keeping the Vela/Ethos toolchain path; larger Ethos-N products address higher-TOPS vision/GenAI in Cortex-A systems.

Latest

Synopsys — ARC NPX NPU IP

Synopsys DesignWare ARC NPX provides licensable neural processor IP for SoC integrators across automotive, consumer, and infrastructure. The family emphasizes scalable TOPS, functional-safety options, and toolchain continuity for DNN/transformer graphs.

Latest

Imagination — NNA IP

Imagination’s PowerVR Neural Network Accelerators (NNA) and GPU+NNA combinations target edge and automotive SoCs. IMG Continuum software maps CNN and transformer-class networks onto the NNA datapaths for licensees.

Latest

CEVA — NeuPro / edge AI IP

CEVA licenses low-power AI processor IP and DSP/NPU hybrids for real-time embedded, automotive, and IoT inference. NeuPro-class offerings and the CEVA DNN compiler add transformer-capable paths for on-device GenAI and vision.

Latest

Cadence — Tensilica AI IP

Cadence Tensilica offers configurable NPU and AI DSP IP for on-device and automotive SoCs. The NeuroWeave toolchain maps modern DNN and transformer graphs onto Tensilica datapaths used widely in vision, audio, and edge GenAI chips.

Latest

VeriSilicon — VIP NPU IP

VeriSilicon provides VIP/Acuity NPU IP plus turnkey ASIC design services, especially strong in China edge and vision SoCs. The IP covers CNN through on-device GenAI use cases for consumer, automotive, and IoT customers.

Latest

IV. Startups


Cerebras — wafer-scale engine

Cerebras builds wafer-scale AI processors (WSE) that place an enormous on-wafer SRAM/compute fabric into CS systems, avoiding many multi-GPU communication bottlenecks. WSE-1/2 established the approach; WSE-3 (2024, 5nm) powers CS-3 for foundation-model training and high-throughput inference with cloud and on-prem deployments.

Latest

Tenstorrent — Wormhole / Blackhole

Tenstorrent (Jim Keller–led) builds Tensix-based AI processors as scalable chiplet meshes with an open software stack (TT-Metalium). Wormhole-generation cards are shipping into developer and rack deployments; Blackhole is the next architecture step toward higher-density train/infer systems.

Latest

Etched — transformer ASICs

Etched builds ASICs purpose-built for Transformer inference (Sohu) rather than general-purpose GPU programmability—betting that specialization wins tokens/sec and energy efficiency for LLM serving. TSMC-manufactured silicon and “frontier inference cluster” messaging mark a fast rise from 2024 Series A through 2026 scale-up.

Latest

Groq — LPU

Groq’s Language Processing Unit (LPU) uses a deterministic, compiler-scheduled architecture for ultra-low-latency LLM token generation. After building a cloud inference service on LPU racks, Groq’s technology was licensed by NVIDIA (late 2025), with key talent joining NVIDIA; GTC 2026 described LPU-class engines inside the Vera Rubin AI factory for efficient decode alongside Rubin GPUs.

Latest

SambaNova — RDU

SambaNova’s Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU) maps full model graphs onto a dataflow fabric for enterprise and agentic inference. SN40L established the GenAI-era platform; SN50 (5th gen) scales compute and network bandwidth for large agentic deployments with SambaNova’s full-stack software.

Latest

Mythic — analog compute-in-memory

Mythic builds Analog Processing Units (APUs) that use flash-based compute-in-memory for energy-efficient inference at the edge and in data centers. After years of analog AI development, 2025–2026 funding and the Videantis acquisition add digital processor IP for a hybrid analog/digital platform aimed at robotics, automotive, and defense.

Latest

Hailo — edge AI accelerators

Hailo designs high-efficiency edge AI accelerators for vision and, with Hailo-10, on-device generative AI. Hailo-8 established the structure-sparsity / efficient-NPU brand in smart cameras and industrial vision; Hailo-10H adds LLM/VLM-class GenAI at low watts with automotive qualification paths.

Latest

Rebellions — AI inference NPUs

Rebellions develops inference-focused NPUs. ATOM and ATOM-Max are first-generation products; REBEL-Quad is a chiplet-based UCIe-Advanced follow-on aimed at larger data-center inference systems.

Latest

FuriosaAI — RNGD / TCP

Korea-based FuriosaAI builds Tensor Contraction Processor (TCP) accelerators for datacenter inference. After earlier Warboy edge/vision chips, RNGD (TSMC 5nm) targets LLM and agentic serving in air-cooled multi-card servers, with a Broadcom collaboration to scale into multi-die Ethernet/PCIe platforms.

Latest

SiMa.ai — Modalix MLSoC

SiMa.ai builds MLSoC platforms for edge / Physical AI—robots, industrial, automotive, and vision—combining CPU, ML accelerator, and software (Palette / LLiMa) for CNN through Transformer/LLM workloads at low power. Modalix is the second-generation production platform after the first MLSoC.

Latest

d-Matrix — Corsair

d-Matrix builds digital compute-in-memory accelerators (Corsair) for low-latency, high-efficiency datacenter LLM inference—contrasting analog CIM approaches with a digital datapath while still attacking the memory-wall bottleneck that dominates decode.

Latest

Blaize — Graph Streaming Processor

Blaize’s Graph Streaming Processor (GSP) targets graph-native edge AI for vision and GenAI in industrial and smart-city deployments. After years as a private edge-AI vendor, Blaize listed via SPAC (Nasdaq: BZAI) in 2025 to scale product and go-to-market.

Latest

SynSense (ex–aiCTX)

SynSense (formerly aiCTX) builds neuromorphic and event-based sensing+compute chips (Speck, Xylo) for ultra-low-power always-on perception. Collaborations such as with iniVation extend event-camera + neuromorphic pipelines for edge AI.

Latest

Sagence AI (ex–Analog Inference)

Sagence AI (rebranded from Analog Inference in Nov 2024) develops analog compute-in-memory accelerators aimed at energy-efficient LLM and vision inference for datacenter and edge deployments—part of the broader analog-AI cohort seeking orders-of-magnitude efficiency vs. digital GPUs on inference.

Latest

V. Acquired / Legacy


Companies and technology lineages that are no longer independent vendors. Acquisition does not necessarily mean the brand, engineering team or product line has ceased to operate; read each corporate-status note.

Graphcore — IPU

Corporate status: Acquired by SoftBank on 11 July 2024; wholly owned subsidiary. Graphcore continues to operate under its own name. It is not an independent startup.

Graphcore pioneered Intelligence Processing Units (IPU) with fine-grained MIMD parallelism and large on-chip memory (Colossus Mk1/Mk2, Bow). Its IPU architecture and Poplar software remain important historical and technical references; current public product and deployment details should be treated separately from the legacy product lineage.

Latest verified corporate update

Kinara (ex–Deep Vision)

Corporate status: NXP completed the acquisition on 27 October 2025. Kinara is no longer an independent startup; its Ara / Prisma edge-NPU technology is tracked within NXP's portfolio.

Kinara (formerly Deep Vision) developed programmable Ara and Prisma neural processors for vision, industrial and on-device GenAI workloads. Retain the technology lineage for historical product comparisons, but attribute current corporate ownership to NXP Semiconductors.

Latest verified corporate update

Ampere Computing — Arm server CPUs

Corporate status: SoftBank completed its acquisition on 25 November 2025. Ampere remains an operating wholly owned subsidiary and continues to publish AmpereOne product and deployment updates.

Ampere designs Arm-based server CPUs for cloud and AI infrastructure. It is not a discrete AI accelerator vendor, but its host-CPU platform is relevant to AI server architecture, power efficiency and accelerator-system balance.

Latest verified updates

Untether AI — speedAI (discontinued)

Corporate status: Ceased operations in June 2025. AMD acquired an engineering team through a strategic acqui-hire; Untether said it would no longer supply or support speedAI hardware or the imAIgine SDK. This was not a disclosed acquisition of the company or all of its IP.

Untether AI developed at-memory inference accelerators for edge and data-center workloads. Its speedAI240 and imAIgine software remain useful historical references, but should not appear as currently available products or as an AMD product family.

Final corporate update

VI. China AI Accelerator Vendors


Domestic training/inference accelerators have become central under export-control and procurement policies. Coverage below highlights widely reported product lines; treat performance claims as vendor-/press-reported unless independently benchmarked.

Huawei Ascend / HiSilicon

Huawei’s Ascend line (HiSilicon) is China’s most widely deployed domestic training/inference accelerator family. Ascend 910 established the high-end; 910B/910C scaled under export controls into Atlas servers and SuperPoD / CloudMatrix supernodes. Ascend 950-class (950DT training / 950PR inference messaging) and Atlas 950 SuperPoD push UnifiedBus optical scale-up to thousands of NPUs as a single logical node, with Cann/MindSpore as the software stack.

Latest

Cambricon (寒武纪)

Cambricon is China’s leading pure-play AI-chip vendor, spanning edge IP/SoCs and cloud MLU / Siyuan accelerators. After an early edge-IP era, the company refocused on cloud training/inference cards for Chinese internet and intelligent-computing customers, with aggressive 2026 volume plans.

Latest

Biren Technology (壁仞科技)

Biren develops general-purpose GPU-class accelerators for data-center AI training and inference. The BR100 family established its high-performance GPGPU direction; subsequent BR-series products and system offerings should be tracked by exact SKU and deployment status rather than treating the family as one device. The company listed in Hong Kong in January 2026 (6082.HK).

Hardware and system direction

Software ecosystem: BIRENSUPA

Latest

Editorial note: publish numerical performance, memory and power specifications only when tied to an identifiable SKU and a primary source. Vendor-reported figures must be labeled as such.

Moore Threads (摩尔线程)

Moore Threads develops full-function GPUs for graphics and AI (MTT S-series) with the MUSA software stack. The company completed a large STAR Market IPO in late 2025 amid China’s domestic GPU push, targeting intelligent-computing centers and PC/GPU markets.

Latest

MetaX (沐曦)

MetaX (沐曦) ships C-series GPUs for training and inference with the MXMACA software stack for AI clusters and intelligent-computing centers. After listing on STAR in Dec 2025, the company reported strong revenue growth into 2026 as domestic GPU demand rose.

Latest

Hygon (海光) DCU

Hygon’s Deep Computing Unit (DCU) accelerators are GPGPU-class chips widely used in China for large-model training and inference, paired with the DTK software stack. Hygon also ships x86 CPUs; the DCU line is the AI-relevant product for intelligent-computing centers.

Latest

Iluvatar CoreX (天数智芯)

Iluvatar CoreX develops general-purpose GPU products for AI training and inference. Its public product portfolio spans the TianGai (天垓) training-GPU family, ZhiKai (智铠) inference products, and TongYang (彤央) edge-computing products. Product comparisons should be SKU-specific and distinguish announced roadmap items from shipping products.

Product families

Software ecosystem

Latest

Editorial note: upstream vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp, and other serving support must be recorded per repository, release, device, and model. An example or community patch is not equivalent to full upstream support.

Enflame (燧原科技)

Enflame develops CloudBlazer (云燧) GCU accelerators and systems for data-center AI training and inference. Its portfolio includes separate training and inference product directions; system offerings and product availability should be distinguished from silicon announcements and roadmap claims.

Hardware and system direction

Software ecosystem: TopsRider

Latest

Editorial note: do not infer that every TopsRider component or serving framework supports every CloudBlazer SKU. Record the exact device and SDK release; distinguish public repository support from vendor-only deployment support.

Horizon Robotics (地平线)

Horizon Robotics (地平线) is a leading China automotive AI SoC vendor. Journey-series chips (through Journey 6 with BPU Nash) power L2+ assisted driving in many passenger vehicles, with increasing Transformer support for BEV/occupancy and end-to-end driving models.

Latest

Black Sesame Technologies (黑芝麻智能)

Black Sesame Technologies (黑芝麻智能) designs automotive-grade ADAS/AD SoCs (Huashan family). Hong Kong-listed in 2024, the company focuses on safety-certified L2+/L3 platforms; A1000-family chips are reported in mass-production vehicles, with A2000 extending toward higher-performance and cross-domain AI.

Latest

AI Accelerator Software Ecosystem

The software landscape now spans graph compilers, kernel DSLs, operator libraries, inference runtimes, distributed serving, communication, and vendor SDKs. A flat compiler list no longer captures the real software stack.

Open the full Software Ecosystem guide → — includes layer-by-layer descriptions, public repositories, vendor integration notes, and a compatibility / maturity matrix.

AI Accelerator Benchmarks

Benchmark coverage should include model-level performance, serving latency, kernel efficiency, communication, memory, power, and cost. Results are comparable only when workload and measurement conditions are disclosed.

Open the full Benchmark guide → — includes taxonomy, result schema, evidence classes, hardware coverage matrix, and methodology caveats.

Reference


Archive / background reading (not a current vendor list).

1. AI Chip Paper List
2. Neural Network Accelerator Comparison (Tsinghua)
3. Tutorial on Hardware Architectures for Deep Neural Networks (MIT Eyeriss)
4. "What We Talk About When We Talk About AI Chip" — #1 · #2 · #3 · #4
5. TPU vs GPU vs Cerebras vs Graphcore (comparison essay)
6. "White Paper on AI Chip Technologies 2018" — download · Google Drive
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