4:50 Mark: "You've got foundries. You've got IBM (?) ... "
Interesting that Sean referred to TeNNs as an algorithm.
Algorithms can be implemented in software at some cost to speed and energy consumption.
We know that Akida 2 was taped out but did not proceed to silicon.
The TeNNs patents were filed mid-2022, so we could have been discussing TeNNs with EAPs from then on, ~ 2 years.
Because TeNNs is such a great improvement on transformers, it could be implemented in software and still outperform transformer NNs by a mile. In fact, Akida NNs can be implemented in software. As I may have said before there is a significant advantage in implementing new tech which is in a state of flux in software, and waiting til the tech is more settled before committing to silicon.
We know Valeo uses software image interpretation in SCALA 3, and we have been working with them in a Joint Development partnership for a few years. Clearly they would have been among the first to hear about TeNNs.
Although they have switched to radio silence on Akida, Mercedes makes a great deal of noise about its software-defined vehicle. Mercedes would also have been among to first to hear about TeNNs, but they have swapped to Luminar for most of their lidar, although I forget when that takes effect. However Luminar also uses software image interpretation. There is thus a possibility that Mercedes could use TeNNs with or without Akida 2 in conjunction with any "legacy" Scala 3 or the new Luminar lidar.
In any event, we know that Valeo has $1B+ forward orders with Stellantis and Toyota, so it is possible that TeNNs/Akida 2 software will be used in these applications.
The best image temporal classification technology, TeNNs, has not yet been reduced to silicon, but it is available in software form*. BRN are busy building the NN models for TeNNs for various applications. The beauty of a software implementation during this development phase is that it can be readily updated.
Similar considerations also apply to Prophesee. In fact, all EAPs would have been consulted about TeNNs - is TeNNs the reason that Akida 1 was labeled too narrow?
*I wonder if Tony's AGM demo of TeNNs sentence building v GPT2 was software or FPGA?
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