In a move that signals its growing influence in the AI world, Groq, a competitor to industry giant Nvidia, has announced plans to deploy its AI technology in Saudi Arabia in 2024. The announcement was made at the Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Groq’s founder and CEO, Jonathan Ross, partnered with Tareq Amin, CEO of Aramco Digital, a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco.
This deployment marks a significant milestone for Groq, which is making waves in the AI landscape. During the summit, Ross revealed that Groq will reach an impressive capacity of 25 million tokens per second by the end of Q1 2025. This translates to a processing power exceeding even the combined capacity of Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI at the end of 2023. For those unfamiliar, tokens are the fundamental units of data processing for AI models, encompassing words, characters, or phrases. Groq’s high token capacity means faster response times, and the company claims to have achieved the fastest output speed on its existing 14nm silicon.
This remarkable speed isn’t limited to 25 million tokens per second. Ross also stated that this capacity can be expanded to a staggering 1 billion tokens per second, consuming over 600 megawatts of power.
Groq’s announcement underscores its ambition to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the AI industry. The company boasts a growing developer community, with over 444,000 developers worldwide utilizing the Groq API (Application Programming Interface). This impressive figure has led Groq to claim the position of the world’s second-largest AI company based on this metric.
Adding to its momentum, Groq recently secured a new funding round led by BlackRock Inc., which doubled the company’s valuation to a substantial $2.5 billion. This funding further solidifies Groq’s position as a force to be reckoned with in the AI space.
The company’s growth has also attracted attention from prominent figures in the tech industry. Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya has endorsed Groq, urging developers to leverage its AI models to enhance their applications.
Simultaneously, Aramco Digital, Groq’s partner in Saudi Arabia, has unveiled its own AI-powered operating system named NourOS. This system empowers users to communicate with the system in natural language, facilitating tasks ranging from information retrieval to process setup.
Groq’s ambitious plans in Saudi Arabia, combined with its impressive technological advancements and financial backing, clearly position it as a major player in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. The company’s foray into the Middle Eastern market, coupled with its growing developer community and high token capacity, suggests that Groq is poised to make a significant impact in the years to come.
