The global AI chip leader NVIDIA is taking remarkable actions to strengthen its technological moat. According to a joint report by CNBC and TechCrunch, NVIDIA has reached a non-exclusive technology licensing agreement with AI chip challenger Groq, and has also hired Groq's founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other core team members. Although NVIDIA clarified that "it is not acquiring Groq," sources cited by CNBC suggest that the asset transaction could reach as high as $2 billion— if true, this would be NVIDIA's largest ever technology acquisition.

Groq's LPU: An "Outlier" with Superior Energy Efficiency Compared to GPUs

Recently, Groq has risen rapidly with its unique LPU (Language Processing Unit) architecture. Unlike NVIDIA's general-purpose parallel GPU architecture, the LPU features a fully deterministic, single-instruction stream, ultra-wide data path design, optimized specifically for large language model (LLM) inference. Groq claims its chip can achieve 10 times the inference speed of GPUs while consuming only one-tenth the power— a performance breakthrough that is highly disruptive in an era where AI inference costs are soaring.

Jonathan Ross, Groq's founder, is a legendary figure in the AI chip industry. During his time at Google, he led the development of the TPU (Tensor Processing Unit), laying the foundation for Google's AI infrastructure. Now, his innovative spirit may be integrated into NVIDIA's next-generation chip architecture.

A $2 Billion Bet? NVIDIA's "Take-It-All" Strategy

If the $2 billion deal is confirmed, this investment far exceeds any of NVIDIA's previous acquisitions (the largest being the $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox). This move sends a clear signal: facing the explosive growth of the AI inference market, NVIDIA no longer relies solely on GPUs but is accelerating the integration of specialized accelerators.

Notably, this is a "non-exclusive license," meaning Groq can still provide LPU technology to other vendors like Microsoft and Amazon. However, the core team joining NVIDIA may significantly weaken Groq's future innovation potential, effectively creating a situation of "technical blood transfusion and talent consolidation."

Groq's Rapid Rise and Hidden Concerns

As of September 2025, Groq has completed $750 million in funding, with a valuation of $6.9 billion. Its platform now supports over 2 million developers (356,000 in 2024 alone, a fivefold increase). Its "instant response" inference capability is widely favored in scenarios such as AI agents, real-time customer service, and end devices.

However, Groq has always faced the challenge of "strong performance but weak ecosystem" in front of NVIDIA's CUDA ecosystem barriers. This technology licensing may offer it a commercial exit, while also helping NVIDIA address its inference energy efficiency shortcomings.

Industry Impact: The AI Chip Industry Enters the "Integrated Architecture" Era

AIbase believes this collaboration marks a shift in AI chip competition from "architectural confrontation" to "advantage integration." In the future, high-performance AI systems may adopt a heterogeneous architecture of "GPU training + LPU inference + DPU communication." NVIDIA, leveraging capital, ecosystem, and technical integration capabilities, is transforming potential disruptors into parts of its own moat— perhaps the most efficient way to "eliminate competitors."

When Groq's LPU technology is integrated into NVIDIA's next-generation Blackwell Ultra or Rubin architecture, the true "energy efficiency revolution" is just beginning. The final outcome of the AI chip industry may not belong to pure challengers, but to the giant that can incorporate all innovations into its own ecosystem.