AMD acquires Taalas, a Toronto-based AI inference chip startup with custom silicon that hardwires AI models into silicon, delivering up to 17,000 tokens/second in early demos.
American semiconductor giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based Taalas, a company focused on hardwiring AI models directly onto chips. The financial terms were not disclosed, and the transaction remains subject to closing conditions and regulatory approval.
Taalas was founded in 2023 by three former executives from AMD and Toronto-founded AI chipmaker Tenstorrent: CEO Ljubisa Bajic (co-founder and ex-CEO of Tenstorrent), COO Lejla Bajic, and CTO Drago Ignjatovic. The company emerged from stealth in 2024 with $50 million in funding from Quiet Capital and Pierre Lamond, followed by an additional $169 million earlier this year that included backing from Fidelity.
AMD describes Taalas as "a pioneer in specialized AI inference silicon," noting that its technology "optimizes AI inference dataflows, significantly reducing compute and memory bottlenecks associated with general-purpose architectures." The startup aims to boost AI efficiency by converting AI models into custom silicon capable of replacing general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs), claiming it can launch new chips in just two months—significantly faster than the industry standard of one to two years. The company has claimed its models could be a thousand times more efficient than software counterparts, with single chips potentially outperforming small GPU data centers.
"Taalas' technology and world-class engineering team strengthen our AI portfolio by delivering differentiated inference performance and efficiency," said Vamsi Boppana, AMD senior vice-president of AMD's AI group.
"We founded Taalas to rethink AI inference from the ground up by building the hardware around the model," Ljubisa Bajic explained. "Joining AMD will give us the scale, engineering resources, and global reach to accelerate our innovation."
AMD plans to integrate Taalas' technology into both existing and future product offerings. The acquisition reflects the company's continued investment in Canadian talent, building on AMD's existing Canadian operations dating back to its 2006 acquisition of Markham-based graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies.
This marks AMD's second acquisition of a Canadian AI chip firm in just over a year, following its 2025 purchase of the team behind Toronto startup Untether AI. The broader trend has seen four of Toronto's most promising chip startups—Taalas, Untether, Tenstorrent, and CentML—acquired by or strike deals with major U.S. players in recent years. Tenstorrent has redomiciled to the U.S., while Nvidia acquired CentML in 2025. Ottawa-based semiconductor startup Hyperlume was also purchased by San Jose's Credo in 2025.