Alphawave Semi has been selected for a research grant from the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) to address networking challenges that are slowing down artificial intelligence (AI) development. The grant aims to reduce bottlenecks that cause AI processors to remain idle while waiting for network data, wasting time and resources. Meta’s data reveals that AI processors can sit idle up to 40% of the time, highlighting a major inefficiency within the current infrastructure.
ARIA has allocated £50 million (USD 65 million) to 12 organisations, including Alphawave Semi, with the goal of enhancing networking and interconnect technologies to make AI growth more sustainable and cost-effective. Alphawave Semi’s CTO, Tony Chan Carusone, emphasised that the company will be working on innovations to increase connectivity within AI accelerator clusters. Carusone stated that improvements across the technology stack, from higher-speed data transmission (224Gbps to 448Gbps) to advanced networking and compute architectures, will be essential to meet the rising demand for AI processing.
In support of this initiative, Alphawave Semi recently completed a multi-protocol I/O connectivity chiplet for high-performance computing and partnered with TSMC on developing 3 nm IP for UCIe, an open chiplet communication protocol. The company is also expanding collaborations in chiplet-based connectivity with Samsung and Arm, further strengthening its position in the field.
ARIA’s funding also backs projects that focus on reducing reliance on advanced chip manufacturing, such as software simulators for whole-system analysis and new computational techniques, creating a broader ecosystem aimed at accelerating AI processing efficiency.
ARIA’s grant to Alphawave Semi signifies an important step in resolving AI’s data bottleneck issues, with the potential to unlock significant advancements in AI processing and scalability.
Alphawave IP Group plc (LON:AWE) is a semiconductor IP company focused on providing DSP based, multi-standard connectivity Silicon IP solutions targeting both data processing in the Datacenter and data generation by IoT end devices.
