The Value of Custom Silicon in the AI Era

By Will Townsend, Patrick Moorhead - January 15, 2025

Generative AI and next-gen applications are transforming the tech landscape, demanding unprecedented levels of innovation. As data grows exponentially, our tech stacks must evolve, from the cloud to data centers and network edges. To unlock the full potential of AI, custom, purpose-built silicon is essential—offering performance, power efficiency, and scalability that traditional solutions simply can’t match.

In an engaging conversation, Will Townsend delves into this transformative topic, exploring the evolution, impact, and future of custom silicon with insights from Marvell Technology’s Sandeep Bharathi, Chief Development Officer, and Will Chu, SVP & GM of Custom Compute and Storage.

💡 Key Highlights:

Why Custom Silicon?
Hyperscalers and enterprises are adopting custom silicon to keep pace with massive workloads. With Moore’s Law slowing, custom silicon enables leapfrog performance and power efficiency.

Defining Custom Silicon – Marvell outlines a spectrum:
– Greenfield designs with unique IP
– Optimized chips with enhanced cores
– New device lines supporting diverse customers (e.g., AI accelerators, CXL, NICs).

The Benefits of Custom Silicon
Investment protection, programmability, and unmatched performance per watt are just a few—especially critical for power-hungry AI workloads.

Marvell’s Vision for the Future
Cutting-edge advancements like 3.5D, optical integration, new materials, and multivendor chipsets are paving the way for the next wave of innovation.

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Disclaimer: This show is for information and entertainment purposes only. While we will discuss publicly traded companies on this show. The contents of this show should not be taken as investment advice.

Will Townsend

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Will Townsend manages the networking and security practices for Moor Insights & Strategy focused on carrier infrastructure providers, carrier services, enterprise networking and security. He brings over 30 years of technology industry experience in a variety of product, marketing, channel, business development and sales roles to his advisory position.

Patrick Moorhead

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Patrick founded the firm based on his real-world world technology experiences with the understanding of what he wasn’t getting from analysts and consultants. Ten years later, Patrick is ranked #1 among technology industry analysts in terms of “power” (ARInsights) in “press citations” (Apollo Research). Moorhead is a contributor at Forbes and frequently appears on CNBC. He is a broad-based analyst covering a wide variety of topics including the cloud, enterprise SaaS, collaboration, client computing, and semiconductors. He has 30 years of experience including 15 years of executive experience at high tech companies (NCR, AT&T, Compaq, now HP, and AMD) leading strategy, product management, product marketing, and corporate marketing, including three industry board appointments.