Groq Inc.

Stories

The race to build non-Nvidia AI inference chips

As of August 2026: Licensed core chip technology to Nvidia for $20B in December 2025; says it still runs GroqCloud independently

Nvidia still runs roughly four of every five AI chips sold today. In December 2025, Nvidia paid $20 billion to license rival Groq's chip design and hire its founding team. It then built its own inference-only rack from that technology, launched at Nvidia's GTC conference in March 2026.

Updated Aug 19

Nvidia's $20 billion Groq deal: the AI inference land grab

New Capabilities

As of May 2026: Assets and team sold to Nvidia for $20B; continuing as independent entity

On Christmas Eve 2025, Nvidia paid $20 billion for Groq's assets—nearly triple the AI chip startup's $6.9 billion valuation from three months earlier. The deal brings Groq's founder Jonathan Ross, who created Google's original Tensor Processing Unit, and his breakthrough inference technology into Nvidia's fold. It's Nvidia's largest acquisition ever, nearly three times bigger than its $7 billion Mellanox purchase.

Updated May 16