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OctoML raises $28M Series B for its machine learning acceleration platform
OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that offers a machine learning acceleration platform built on top of the open-source Apache TVM compiler framework project, today announced that it has raised a $28 million Series B funding round led by Addition. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Amplify Partners also participated in this round, which brings the company’s total funding to $47 million. The company last raised in April 2020, when it announced its $15 million Series A round led by Amplify.
The promise of OctoML, which was founded by the team that also created TVM, is that developers can bring their models to its platform and the service will automatically optimize that model’s performance for any given cloud or edge device.
As Brazil-born OctoML co-founder and CEO Luis Ceze told me, since raising its Series A round, the company started onboarding some early adopters to its “Octomizer” SaaS platform.
Image Credits: OctoML
“It’s still in early access, but we are we have close to 1,000 early access sign-ups on the waitlist,” Ceze said. “That was a pretty strong signal for us to end up taking this [funding]. The Series B was pre-emptive. We were planning on starting to raise money right about now. We had barely started spending our Series A money — we still had a lot of that left. But since we saw this growth and we had more paying customers than we anticipated, there were a lot of signals like, ‘hey, now we can accelerate the go-to-market machinery, build a customer success team and continue expanding the engineering team to build new features.’ ”
Ceze tells me that the team also saw strong growth signals in the overall community around the TVM project (with about 1,000 people attending its virtual conference last year). As for its customer base (and companies on its waitlist), Ceze says it represents a wide range of verticals that range from defense contractors to financial services and life science companies, automotive firms and startups in a variety of fields.
Recently, OctoML also launched support for the Apple M1 chip — and saw very good performance from that.
The company has also formed partnerships with industry heavyweights like Microsoft (which is also a customer), Qualcomm and AMD to build out the open-source components and optimize its service for an even wider range of models (and larger ones, too).
On the engineering side, Ceze tells me that the team is looking at not just optimizing and tuning models but also the training process. Training ML models can quickly become costly and any service that can speed up that process leads to direct savings for its users — which in turn makes OctoML an easier sell. The plan here, Ceze tells me, is to offer an end-to-end solution where people can optimize their ML training and the resulting models and then push their models out to their preferred platform. Right now, its users still have to take the artifact that the Octomizer creates and deploy that themselves, but deployment support is on OctoML’s roadmap.
“When we first met Luis and the OctoML team, we knew they were poised to transform the way ML teams deploy their machine learning models,” said Lee Fixel, founder of Addition. “They have the vision, the talent and the technology to drive ML transformation across every major enterprise. They launched Octomizer six months ago and it’s already becoming the go-to solution developers and data scientists use to maximize ML model performance. We look forward to supporting the company’s continued growth.”
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AMD grabs Xilinx for $35 billion as chip industry consolidation continues
The chip industry consolidation dance continued this morning as AMD has entered into an agreement to buy Xilinx for $35 billion, giving the company access to a broad set of specialized workloads.
AMD sees this deal as combining two companies that complement each other’s strengths without cannibalizing its own markets. CEO Lisa Su believes the acquisition will help make her company the high performance chip leader.
“By combining our world-class engineering teams and deep domain expertise, we will create an industry leader with the vision, talent and scale to define the future of high performance computing,” Su said in a statement.
In an article earlier this year, TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington described Xilinx new satellite focused chips as offering a couple of industry firsts:
It’s the first 20nm process that’s rated for use in space, offering power and efficiency benefits, and it’s the first to offer specific support for high performance machine learning through neural network-based inference acceleration.
What’s more, the chips are designed to handle radiation and the rigors of launch, using a thick ceramic packaging.
In a call with analysts this morning, Su pointed to these kinds of specialized workloads as one of Xilinx’s strengths. “Xilinx has also built deep strategic partnerships across a diverse set of growing markets in 5G communications, data center, automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense. Xilinx is establishing themselves as a strategic technology partner to a broad set of industry leaders,” she said.
The success of these kinds of mega deals tend to hinge on whether the combined companies can work well together. Su pointed out that the two companies have been partnering for a number of years and already have a relationship, and the two company leaders share a common vision.
“Both AMD and Xilinx share common culture, focused on innovation, execution and collaborating deeply with customers. From a leadership standpoint, Victor and I have a shared vision of where we can take high performance and adaptive computing in the future,” Su said.
In a nod to shareholders of both companies, she said, “This is truly a compelling combination that will create significant value for all stakeholders, including AMD and Xilinx shareholders who will benefit from the future growth and upside potential of the combined company.”
So far stockholders aren’t impressed with AMD stock down over 4% in pre-trading, while Xilinx stock is up over 11% in pre-trading. Xilinx has a market cap over $28 billion compared with AMD’s $96.5 billion, creating a massive combined company.
This deal comes on the heels of last month’s ARM acquisition by Nvidia for $40 billion. With two deals in less than two months totaling $75 million, the industry is looking at the bigger is better theory. Meanwhile Intel took a hit earlier this month after its earnings report showed weakness in its data center business.
While the deal has been approved by both company’s boards of directors, it still has to pass muster with shareholders and regulators, and is not expected to close until the end of next year.
When that happens Su will be chairman of the combined company, while Xilinx president and CEO, Victor Peng will join AMD as president, where he will be in charge of the Xilinx business and strategic growth initiatives.
It’s worth noting that the Wall Street Journal first reported that a deal between these two companies could be coming together earlier this month.
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Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s next-gen console, arriving late-2020
If you didn’t watch last night’s Game Awards, you may have missed it. But Xbox Series X is the company’s next-generation console, and will be arriving in late 2020. Thankfully, Microsoft has kindly cataloged all of the images, media and even a little information online. Oh, and we’ll almost certainly be hearing a LOT more about the Xbox Series X before it arrives for the holidays in 2020.
Xbox head Phil Spencer has a pretty long breakdown over on the the official blog. But let’s start with the obvious here. The Series X looks…different. Surely the meme makers are already working overtime on this one, but to my mind, it looks like a more traditional PC or maybe even a router.
It’s tall (around three times as tall as its predecessor), it’s rectangular, it’s black. It’s fairly minimalist. A lot of people seem to be comparing it to a refrigerator, which is fine. Honestly, I think it’s got that working for it. Surely plenty of people are looking for something that more seamlessly blends in with its surroundings.
The last few generations have found consoles transforming from specialty items into catch-all media players, and there’s something to be said for a product that can sit on your shelf, largely undetected. Notably, the blocky design means that the console can be oriented either vertically or horizontally, depending on your spacing needs.
The latest version of the Xbox Wireless Controller arrives alongside the new system, because, well, you’re going to need something to control it with. It’s a bit smaller than the previous version, “refined to accommodate an even wider range of people,” per Spencer.
The buttons are largely intact, with the addition of a Share button for taking screenshots and game clips. The new controllers ship with the system and will be compatible with both the Xbox One and Windows 10 systems.
Speaking of older systems, the Series X is set up to support backward compatibility for all older systems, along with Xbox One accessories. Per Spencer:
Building on our compatibility promise, with Xbox Series X we’re also investing in consumer-friendly pathways to game ownership across generations.
Leading the way with our first-party titles including Halo Infinite in 2020, we’re committed to ensuring that games from Xbox Game Studios support cross-generation entitlements and that your Achievements and game saves are shared across devices.
Spec information is still pretty light for this first pass, but Spencer promises 4K playback at 60FPS (with potentially up to 120FPS) and support for both Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and 8K capability:
Powered by our custom-designed processor leveraging the latest Zen 2 and next generation RDNA architecture from our partners at AMD, Xbox Series X will deliver hardware accelerated ray tracing and a new level of performance never before seen in a console. Additionally, our patented Variable Rate Shading (VRS) technology will allow developers to get even more out of the Xbox Series X GPU and our next-generation SSD will virtually eliminate load times and bring players into their gaming worlds faster than ever before.
The Series X will also, naturally, have an eye on cloud gaming, in addition to native hardware. Tonight’s unveil also featured a sneak preview of the upcoming Ninja Theory title, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.
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Google and Twitter are using AMD’s new EPYC Rome processors in their data centers
Google and Twitter are among the companies now using EPYC Rome processors, AMD announced today during a launch event for the 7nm chips. The release of EPYC Rome marks a major step in AMD’s processor war with Intel, which said last month that its own 7nm chips, Ice Lake, won’t be available until 2021 (though it is expected to release its 10nm node this year).
Intel is still the biggest data center processor maker by far, however, and also counts Google and Twitter among its customers. But AMD’s latest releases and its strategy of undercutting competitors with lower pricing have quickly transformed it into a formidable rival.
Google has used other AMD chips before, including in its “Millionth Server,” built in 2008, and says it is now the first company to use second-generation EPYC chips in its data centers. Later this year, Google will also make available to Google Cloud customers virtual machines that run on the chips.
In a press statement, Bart Sano, Google vice president of engineering, said “AMD 2nd Gen Epyc processors will help us continue to do what we do best in our datacenters: innovate. Its scalable compute, memory and I/O performance will expand out ability to drive innovation forward in our infrastructure and will give Google Cloud customers the flexibility to choose the best VM for their workloads.”
Twitter plans to begin using EPYC Rome in its data center infrastructure later this year. Its senior director of engineering, Jennifer Fraser, said the chips will reduce the energy consumption of its data centers. “Using the AMD EPYC 7702 processor, we can scale out our compute clusters with more cores in less space using less power, which translates to 25% lower [total cost of ownership] for Twitter.”
In a comparison test between 2-socket Intel Xeon 6242 and AMD EPYC 7702P processors, AMD claimed that its chips were able to reduce total cost of ownership by up to 50% across “numerous workloads.” AMD EPYC Rome’s flagship is the 64-core, 128-thread 7742 chip, with a 2.25 base frequency, 225 default TDP and 256MB of total cache, starts at $6,950.
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This year’s Computex was a wild ride with dueling chip releases, new laptops and 467 startups
After a relatively quiet show last year, Computex picked up the pace this year, with dueling chip launches by rivals AMD and Intel and a slew of laptop releases from Asus, Qualcomm, Nvidia, Lenovo and other companies.
Founded in 1981, the trade show, which took place last week from May 28 to June 1, is one of the ICT industry’s largest gatherings of OEMs and ODMs. In recent years, the show’s purview has widened, thanks to efforts by its organizers, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council and Taipei Computer Association, to attract two groups: high-end computer customers, such as hardcore gamers, and startups looking for investors and business partners. This makes for a larger, more diverse and livelier show. Computex’s organizers said this year’s event attracted 42,000 international visitors, a new record.
Though the worldwide PC market continues to see slow growth, demand for high-performance computers is still being driven by gamers and the popularity of esports and live-streaming sites like Twitch. Computex, with its large, elaborate booths run by brands like Asus’ Republic of Gaming, is a popular destination for many gamers (the show is open to the public, with tickets costing NTD $200, or about $6.40), and began hosting esport competitions a few years ago.
The timing of the show, formally known as the Taipei International Information Technology Show, at the end of May or beginning of June each year, also gives companies a chance to debut products they teased at CES or preview releases for other shows later in the year, including E3 and IFA.
One difference between Computex now and ten (or maybe even just five) years ago is that the increasing accessibility of high-end PCs means many customers keep a close eye on major announcements by companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia, not only to see when more powerful processors will be available but also because of potential pricing wars. For example, many gamers hope competition from new graphic processor units from AMD will force Nvidia to bring down prices on its popular but expensive GPUs.
The Battle of the Chips
The biggest news at this year’s Computex was the intense rivalry between AMD and Intel, whose keynote presentations came after a very different twelve months for the two competitors.
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AMD unveils the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, at half the price of Intel’s competing Core i9 9920X chipset
AMD CEO Lisa Su gave the Computex keynote in Taipei today, the first time the company has been invited to do so (the event officially starts tomorrow). During the presentation, AMD unveiled news about its chips and graphics processors that will increase pressure on competitors Intel and Nvidia, both in terms of pricing and performance.
Chips
All new third-generation Ryzen CPUs, the first with 7-nanometer desktop chips, will go on sale on July 7. The showstopper of Su’s keynote was the announcement of AMD’s 12-core, 24-thread Ryzen 9 3900x chip, the flagship of its third-generation Ryzen family. It will retail starting at $499, half the price of Intel’s competing Core i9 9920X chipset, which is priced at $1,189 and up.
The 3900x has 4.6 Ghz boost speed and 70 MB of total cache and uses 105 watts of thermal design power (versus the i9 9920x’s 165 watts), making it more efficient. AMD says that in a Blender demo against Intel i9-9920x, the 3900x finished about 18 percent more quickly.
Here’s an exclusive #COMPUTEX2019 look at the newest edition to the Ryzen family, the 12 core/24 thread 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen 9 3900X processor. https://t.co/OgLHoqWv9T pic.twitter.com/75FzfpdiKx
— AMD Ryzen (@AMDRyzen) May 27, 2019
Starting prices for other chips in the family are $199 for the 6-core, 12-thread 3600; $329 for the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 3700x (with 4.4 Ghz boost, 36 MB of total cache and a 65 watt TDP); and $399 for the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 3800X (4.5 Ghz, 32MB cache, 105w).
GPUs
AMD also revealed that its first Navi graphics processor units will be the Radeon RX 5000 series. Pricing is being closely watched because it may pressure Nvidia to bring down prices on competing products. AMD announced that the GPUs will be available in July, but more details, including pricing, performance and new features, won’t be announced until E3 next month in Los Angeles.
Introducing the world’s first “Navi” gaming GPU family based on the all new RDNA gaming architecture: the AMD Radeon RX 5700 series. Learn more from #COMPUTEX2019: https://t.co/xwexmdDMin pic.twitter.com/rY2dAsq52l
— AMD (@AMD) May 27, 2019
Data processors
AMD announced that its EPYC Rome data center processors, first demoed at CES in January, will launch next quarter, one quarter earlier than previously anticipated, to compete with Intel’s Cascade Lake. AMD says that during a benchmark test, EPYC Rome performed twice as fast as Cascade Lake.
AMD CEO @LisaSu just gave the first public competitive demonstration of a 2nd Gen AMD #EPYC server platform outperforming the competition in a NAMD Apo1 v2.12 benchmark test by more than 2x. #COMPUTEX2019 https://t.co/ZHmrqBigjB pic.twitter.com/HQI5EPLmFf
— AMD EPYC (@AMDServer) May 27, 2019
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AWS expands cloud infrastructure offerings with new AMD EPYC-powered T3a instances
Amazon is always looking for ways to increase the options it offers developers in AWS, and to that end, today it announced a bunch of new AMD EPYC-powered T3a instances. These were originally announced at the end of last year at re:Invent, AWS’s annual customer conference.
Today’s announcement is about making these chips generally available. They have been designed for a specific type of burstable workload, where you might not always need a sustained amount of compute power.
“These instances deliver burstable, cost-effective performance and are a great fit for workloads that do not need high sustained compute power but experience temporary spikes in usage. You get a generous and assured baseline amount of processing power and the ability to transparently scale up to full core performance when you need more processing power, for as long as necessary,” AWS’s Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
These instances are built on the AWS Nitro System, Amazon’s custom networking interface hardware that the company has been working on for the last several years. The primary components of this system include the Nitro Card I/O Acceleration, Nitro Security Chip and the Nitro Hypervisor.
Today’s release comes on top of the announcement last year that the company would be releasing EC2 instances powered by Arm-based AWS Graviton Processors, another option for developers looking for a solution for scale-out workloads.
It also comes on the heels of last month’s announcement that it was releasing EC2 M5 and R5 instances, which use lower-cost AMD chips. These are also built on top of the Nitro System.
The EPCY processors are available starting today in seven sizes in your choice of spot instances, reserved instances or on-demand, as needed. They are available in US East in northern Virginia, US West in Oregon, Europe in Ireland, US East in Ohio and Asia-Pacific in Singapore.
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Gaming monitors, headsets and peripherals for a winning desktop setup
Editor’s note: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.
New and serious gamers know that it takes a significant amount of time to sharpen skills, and to strategize ways to capture high scores. Staying ahead of player 2 is easier when you have the right gaming peripherals.
A monitor with a crisp display, a responsive gaming mouse, a comfortable headset—or all of these items combined—are what you need to take your PC gaming experience to the next level. We can’t promise that new equipment will keep you at the top of the board, but the best gear with accommodating features is essential to a great setup, and to helping you try.
G-Sync Monitor: Asus ROG Swift PG279Q
For the best option to pair with a Nvidia graphics card, we recommend the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q (Amazon) G-Sync gaming monitor. At 27 inches it’s big enough to give off an immersive feeling, but not so big that visuals seem overwhelming. It only works over displayport and has two connection options (HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2a). You’ll still be able to plug in peripherals like a keyboard or phone via its built-in USB 3.0 port. We tested it with a variety of games and it performed well with them all. This monitor’s luminance range is also pretty wide so it’ll display images nicely if placed in dim or bright areas.
Photo: Rozette Rago
FreeSync monitor: Asus MG279Q
The Asus MG279Q (Amazon), our top FreeSync monitor pick, is best for those who use an AMD graphics card. A gaming console and computer work well with this 27-inch monitor as it’s packed with connection options (one Mini DisplayPort 1.2 connection, two HDMI 1.4 connections and one DisplayPort 1.2).
We like its adjustability and that you can detach it completely from its stand. It can be mounted on a monitor arm to better accommodate different setups. Though it supports FreeSync between 35 Hz and 90 Hz, it has 1440p resolution and a standard refresh rate of 144 Hz for clear, high-quality visuals.
Photo: Rozette Rago
Headset: Kingston HyperX Cloud
The excitement that comes along with gaming is largely attached to being able to clearly hear the action. A gaming headset that can offer all-day comfort, a high-quality microphone and full sound is a headset you want to go with.
Our top pick, the Kingston HyperX Cloud (Amazon), offers all of these features and after about 30 months of testing, it’s held up well. It’ll still look as good as new after being tossed around, but more importantly, its headband and ear cups don’t feel heavy or constricting. You’ll be able to play online with teammates without hearing an overlap between headset and microphone audio. It’s also a decent headset for watching movies and listening to music.
Photo: Michael Hession
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Elite
The Razer DeathAdder Elite, our top gaming mouse pick, has a design that’s ideal for hands of all sizes. We like that it has textured grip, and that you’re able to get comfortable with preferred settings using its customizable buttons and scroll wheel. It isn’t clunky and you won’t press the wrong buttons, as they’re intuitive and well-placed.
Aside from its RGB lights that change color, it doesn’t look much different from a mouse you’d find at a work desk. It comes with Razer’s Synapse software (which works on Mac and Windows), and it has an accurate, exclusive Pixart PMW3389 sensor that tracks without issue.
Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald
Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma V2
Though we like the multicolored backlighting on the Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma V2 (Amazon), there’s more than a few reasons why this compact mechanical keyboard is our top recommendation. Its removable palm rest makes getting comfortable in different positions easier and it comes with a durable protective case.
Its learning curve isn’t as steep as competitors, so if the Chroma V2 is your first gaming keyboard it won’t be long before you get into the swing of things. You can set macros to specific keys and applications and use a variety of switch options. Like the Razer DeathAdder Elite gaming mouse, it uses Synapse software.
Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald
PC gaming controller: DualShock 4 Wireless Controller
Gamers who prefer playing on consoles will enjoy using a PC gaming controller with a computer. The DualShock 4 Wireless Controller (which comes with the PlayStation 4) is our top pick, because it’s the most capable PC controller, as well as a few extra features: The touchpad can be used like a mouse cursor and it has an internal rechargeable battery. It connects over Bluetooth or USB and is best used with a separate gaming headset, as its audio jack doesn’t function properly with PCs.
The controller works great with Steam, though in order to get it working with MacOS or non-Steam Windows games, you’ll have to adjust some settings. We think it’s worth the effort for a responsive controller that’s comfortable to hold for long periods of time.
Photo: Andrew Cunningham
This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter.
Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.
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AMD’s new top-end Radeon Vega graphics cards are taking aim at competing GPUs
It’s high-time for AMD to announce a new generation graphics card and it’s done just that with the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition. This potentially deadly duo of souped-up GPUs take aim at NVIDIA’s Pascal series, namely the GTX 1080, 1080Ti and even directly, to the more recently announced Titan Xp. Here are the nerdy details: the Vega features 64 compute units, an… Read More
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