Company Unveils Industry-Leading YOLO Performance for Edge AI Video Analytics at CES 2024

Axelera AI, provider of the world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the Edge, announced significant technology advancement and customer adoption. Following the unveiling of the company’s Early Access Program and first product shipment, Axelera AI customers can soon use state-of-the-art AI inference processing with YOLO (“You Only Look Once”) Neural Networks for Edge AI Computer Vision applications, with unmatched performance, opening up unprecedented opportunities for Edge deployment with the industry-defining Metis™ AI Platform. The solution was recently named a CES 2024 Innovation Awards Honoree and is being showcased this week at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The acceleration of AI technologies has brought with it the opportunity for innovation across a range of vertical markets. The Metis AI Platform provides customers with advanced Edge AI-native hardware and software solutions for companies of all sizes across a multitude of industries. Early Access Program customers System Electronics/Coesia Group, XXII, Relay2 among others are currently utilizing the Metis AI platform within their cutting-edge products to differentiate the unique offerings they bring to their respective industries.

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“The exceptional performance and accuracy of the Axelera AI Acceleration platform have significantly fueled our collaborative efforts. Its unmatched performance-to-price ratio, surpassing traditional GPUs and dedicated AI Processing units, has been critical in our selection process. We are confident that leveraging their state-of-the-art YOLO performances will empower us to tackle new challenges in our current and future video analysis applications,” said Alexandre Perez, R&D Director at XXII.

“Better performance and accuracy at a similar price point compared to alternative AI accelerators in the market brought us to select Axelera AI as our partner in the Edge AI space. Our group is committed to providing cutting-edge solutions to our customers in the industrial automation space. Our partnership with Axelera AI not only ensures that we meet customers’ current needs but also helps future-proof their deployment at the Edge by providing a best-in-class solution,” added Andrea Gozzi, General Manager of System Electronics/Coesia Group.

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“Relay2’s Wi-Fi enabled Edge Computing solution with embedded Axelera Metis AIPU allows our surveillance solution customers to take full advantage of edge computing,” said Eric Chen, CEO of Relay2, Inc. “With Axelera Metis AIPU’s low power consumption and high inference accuracy, Relay2’s Service Point is able to process the surveillance videos onsite and generate instant analytics. This integrated solution facilitates immediate responses to onsite incidents, and reduces CAPEX and OPEX for our retail and industrial customers.”

The Metis AI Platform combined with the YOLOv5s network offers a full multi-channel video analytics pipeline with high-accuracy object detection, running at 480 frames per second (16 Full HD resolution streams at 30 FPS). The demonstration at CES showcases the Metis AI platform’s pre-release, which has been in the hands of select Axelera AI customers through an Early Access Program since last September and is now available for evaluation. The full production-ready platform will be available in mid-2024 and has a projected performance up to 800 frames per second. Axelera AI matches 99% of the original model’s precision, indistinguishable from GPU-based inference models, while offering 4-5 times the energy efficiency and cost savings, opening up unprecedented opportunities for Edge deployment. The Metis PCIe and M.2 Edge AI accelerator cards are sampling now.

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“Integrating YOLO into our Metis AI Platform marks a significant milestone in Edge AI inference,” said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO and Co-Founder of Axelera AI. “As more and more customers harness the advantages of AI, computer vision models like YOLO and the Metis AI Platform enable applications previously constrained by computational power. Our platform’s enhanced capabilities demonstrate our commitment to providing the best performance and usability, at a fraction of the price and power consumption of other solutions available today. Axelera AI is committed to not only making current solution designs ready for the future, but also to looking ahead and getting ready for the next wave of technological innovations.”

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Axelera AI, the provider of the world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the Edge, announces new investors who have joined their oversubscribed Series A round, bringing the total amount raised to $50 million. In the last several months, CDP Venture Capital, Verve Ventures and Fractionelera have joined the round. The latter consortium of investors was created specifically to fund Axelera AI. Innovation Industries increased its investment in the company becoming the largest investor. Despite the challenging fundraising environment, this underscores the company’s potential and market traction.

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“We are proud to contribute to the growth of Axelera AI, a great Italian-led European company that is expanding its R&D division in the Milan office by bringing know-how and expertise to a highly strategic market for the future such as semiconductors”

The funding will support Axelera AI’s global expansion and mass production of its first-generation AI acceleration platform, powered by its disruptive in-memory computing and RISC-V controlled dataflow technology. A few months after their product announcement, 350+ customers have shown interest, close to 100 requested a sample for testing, and over 50 signed up to company’s Early Access Program (EAP), which still has a few weeks remaining for potential applicants. The EAP supports customers in developing next-generation computer vision products by providing benefits, such as collaborative hardware design, as well as specialized support for software and machine learning.

Through their Metis AI Platform, Axelera AI redefines boundaries and provides access to industry-leading Edge AI products. Offering the best performance and user-friendliness at a significantly reduced cost and power consumption. Compared to existing alternatives, their platform aims to make AI readily accessible to a wider audience.

Axelera AI has begun expanding its operations within the United States with Jonathan Ballon joining as non-executive Chairman and the addition of Sander Arts, marketing veteran in Silicon Valley as Marketing Advisor. The company is also actively recruiting for a Global Vice President of Sales, business developers and technical support team.

“In just 20 months, we’ve achieved incredible milestones including the tape out of two cutting-edge AI chips, securing a total of $50M in funding, forging impactful partnerships and design wins with industry-leading customers. We’re thrilled to bring our new investors into the fold. This is a testament to our trailblazing technology and the unwavering trust our investors place in our extraordinary team,” said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO of Axelera AI.

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“We are proud to contribute to the growth of Axelera AI, a great Italian-led European company that is expanding its R&D division in the Milan office by bringing know-how and expertise to a highly strategic market for the future such as semiconductors,” said Mario Scuderi, Senior Partner and head of Evolution Fund, CDP Venture Capital.

“We believe that Axelera AI is in a unique position to capture the rapidly developing edge AI market with a strong combination of next-generation hardware and software. The exceptional founding team has been able to constantly attract top-level talent and push the technology to a commercial level at a high pace. We are excited to join this future European semicon champion on their journey,” said Emma Schepers, Senior Investment Associate at Verve Ventures.

“We are thankful for the opportunity to invest as a collective of individuals in a company that is positioned at the forefront of innovation in the semiconductor industry. We believe in the continued growth and development of the market and are confident in the potential for Axelera AI to deliver ground-breaking solutions that will shape the future of the industry,” said a representative of Fractionelera.

“As one of the first investors in Axelera AI, we are happy to see additional strong investors joining the journey. This further acknowledges the strength of the team, technology and product while positioning the company perfectly for strong growth. We look forward to building this company together with the management team and the investors,” said Sander Verbrugge, Partner at Innovation Industries.

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Arteris,a leading provider of system IP which accelerates system-on-chip (SoC) creation, announced that Axelera AI,a provider of the world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the edge, has licensed Arteris FlexWay. The Arteris IP will be used for SoC connectivity in the Metis AI platform, a hardware and software platform for computer vision AI inference at the edge. This technology delivers advanced acceleration performance and usability at a fraction of the cost and power consumption of solutions available today.

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The Metis AI processing unit (AIPU), as part of the Metris AI Platform, is equipped with four homogeneous AI cores built for complete neural network inference acceleration. Each AI core is self-sufficient and can execute all layers of a standard neural network without external interactions. The four cores are integrated into an SoC and comprised of a RISC-V controller, PCIe interface, LPDDR4X controller, and a security complex connected via a high-speed network-on-chip (NoC). The unit can collaborate on a workload to boost throughput or operate on the same neural network in parallel to reduce latency or process different neural networks required by the application concurrently.

“Arteris is the proven industry standard for system IP with responsive support, and deploying their technology guaranteed we met our performance requirements and aggressive timelines,” said Giuseppe Garcea, director of silicon and co-founder at Axelera AI. “Arteris FlexWay interconnect IP allowed us to close timing smoothly on a complex, multicore machine learning architecture. We look forward to working together on the next project.”

Arteris FlexWay interconnect IP uses area-optimized interconnect components to address a smaller class of SoC. The architecture has been designed to be 100 percent compatible with Arm AMBA AXI and AHB standards. It provides a scalable solution to ultra-low power consumption and the automation of interconnect SoC connectivity.

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“We are honored to be working with Axelera AI on the edge AI inferencing in computer vision applications,” said K. Charles Janac, president and CEO of Arteris. “This further supports the leading role that Arteris plays in accelerating AI innovation across a broad list of end applications.”

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Axelera AI, provider of powerful and advanced solutions for artificial intelligence (AI) at the Edge, selected Ansys simulation software for digital power integrity signoff of its high-performance Metis AI Processing Unit (AIPU). This effort is part of Axelera AI’s work with Ansys to build its recently released Metis AI platform, a hardware and software platform for computer vision AI inference at the edge. The technology delivers advanced acceleration performance and usability at a fraction of the cost and power consumption.

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Logical chip interactions across various power and clock domains have the potential to cause chip failures. Axelera AI needed to validate its Metis AIPU, which contained as many as 100 million gates, or simple switching circuits, along with different clock and power domains responsible for executing operations essential to a digital circuit. These interactions were difficult to analyze using traditional tools and methods, which lacked accuracy, and proved too time consuming and resource intensive.

Axelera AI developed a top-down, two-step workflow enabled by Ansys software to understand floorplan quality and IR drop. First, the software was used to prefetch or transfer numerous weaknesses in various integrated circuit schematics that would have delayed the manufacturing process. Next, drop analysis was completed using Ansys simulation to uncover problems impacting chip quality, then to quickly iterate on and execute fixes to minimize unanticipated voltage drops that lead to circuit failure.

“During our analysis, we uncovered serious problems that could affect the quality of our chip design,” said Giuseppe Garcea, director of silicon and co-founder at Axelera AI. “Setting up a two-step workflow with Ansys software was straightforward, and initial run times were accomplished on one server. Ultimately, these tools provided the detailed data we needed to quickly identify and iterate on various fixes to floorplan and IR-drop challenges. Ansys gave our team confidence that we could circumvent any design issues that lead to chip failure in the future.”

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“Demands for edge AI platforms, characterized by massive amounts of data processing and storage, require significant architectural improvements on the chip side,” said Shane Emswiler, senior vice president of products at Ansys. “Today’s chip designs require complex testing and validation, exerting upward pressure on semiconductor manufacturers to fulfill changing system requirements in a sensitive, cost- and time-performant manner. Ansys simulation software enables comprehensive, competent analysis needed to quickly optimize the power and performance of these chip designs and speed the movement of data critical to AI applications.”

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Axelera AI, the provider of world’s most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the Edge announces a strategic partnership with Advantech. Combining Advantech’s expertise in the embedded and industrial PCs and Axelera AI’s disruptive edge AI technology, together they will bring the inference power of a data center to edge devices, enabling customers to process data in real-time, reducing latency while increasing efficiency.

In just 18 months Axelera AI:

• Taped out two chips,
• Introduced their next-generation Metis AI hardware and software platform,
• Raised $37ml USD funding,
• Grown a team of more than 110 game-changers – 40 PhDs – in 12 European countries.

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At Embedded World Axelera AI will show its new products, available in a range of industry-standard form factors varying from M.2 modules to vision ready systems. The products combine powerful processing performance with Metis AIPU technology and the easy-to-use Voyager SDK software stack, just at a fraction of the cost and power consumption of today’s available solutions.

“We are excited to showcase our progress in building next-generation computer vision products. The partnership with Advantech underpins the magnitude of what our Metis AI platform delivers and we are honored to partner with them. As we grow, we’re seeking talented people to join our team and develop the future of Edge AI.” Said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO of Axelera AI.

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