BrainChip Holdings Ltd is a leading provider of ultra-low power, high performance artificial intelligence technology and the world’s first commercial producer of neuromorphic AI chips and IP. BrainChip is looking forward to 2022 as it closes its most successful year ever buoyed by technological advancements made to its Akida™ technology, commercialization, additions of veteran leadership to both its management and Board of Directors, market exchange upgrades and more.
“One of the things that impressed me the most about BrainChip when looking to join the company was the quality and volume of successes it has achieved, and the dedicated and talented team that are the heart of BrainChip’s success”
BrainChip saw its vision for brain-inspired Neuromorphic AI architecture move into production reality this year. This technology, which mimics the processing function and learning structure of the human brain, helps customers create ultra-low power products with the ability to perform classification entirely on-chip and to rapidly learn on-chip without the need to connect to the cloud.
Among the many milestones achieved this year, the Akida AKD1000 neuromorphic processor production chips were received from BrainChip’s manufacturing partner, SocioNext America and TSMC. BrainChip completed functionality and performance testing of the production chips and began volume production. This success enabled the company to start accepting and shipping orders of Akida development kits to its partners, large enterprises and OEMs for their own internal testing, validation, and product development. Additionally, BrainChip licensed its Akida IP to ASIC industry heavyweights MegaChips and Renesas to help enhance and grow their technology positioning for next-generation, cloud independent AI products.
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This year also saw the introduction of MetaTF™, a versatile ML framework that works within TensorFlow™1, which allows people working in the convolutional neural network space to seamlessly transition to neuromorphic computing quickly and easily without having to learn anything new. The MetaTF development environment is an easy-to-use machine learning framework for the creation, training and testing of neural networks, supporting the development of systems for Edge AI on BrainChip’s Akida AKD1000 event domain neural processor. Over 4,500 potential customers have started to use MetaTF in 2021 alone.
Achieving rapid success in Akida product development allowed BrainChip to move its US headquarters to larger facilities to support expected customer growth as the company continues to move toward commercialization of its Akida AKD1000 neuromorphic processor and comprehensive development environment. The new 10,000 sq. ft. (929 square meters) facility is four times the size of its previous headquarters and provides the company with the ability to scale its services and processes needed to satisfy expected customer and support infrastructure needs.
BrainChip recently announced the appointment of Mr. Sean Hehir as BrainChip’s new CEO. He takes over from interim CEO Peter van der Made, who moves to his previous CTO position full time. Mr. Hehir’s focus is to guide BrainChip’s progress towards full commercialization of the Akida AKD1000 chip and its IP. He is joined by non-executive director additions to the Company’s Board – former ARM executive Antonio J. Viana and innovation champion and strategic advisor Ms. Pia Turcinov.
As a public company, BrainChip received several upgrades to its market presence, which included its addition to the S&P/ASX 300 index, an update of its ticker symbol on the OTC market and a listing upgrade to the OTCQX Best market. BrainChip also launched a US based ADR (BCHPY) that allows BrainChip to continue its path of pursuing high accessibility to the US capital markets. Due to the strong demand for high-growth potential, Artificial Intelligence stocks in the US are expected to result in an influx of US investment and ultimately an increase in shareholder value. The company’s successes have driven a rise of its stock price by 100 percent over the last 12 months
Other highlights from this year include being named among the EE Times Silicon 100, the launch of five sensor modalities of Akida (odor, vision, audio, tactile and gustation, which see real-world application in Covid-19 detection, facial recognition, voice recognition, vibration analysis and wine and beer taste recognition). Practical demonstrations in quality control and other industrial environments consume only microwatts to milliwatts of power. BrainChip’s founder Peter van der Made won the AI Hardware 2021 innovator award based on the development and production capabilities of Akida, the continuation of its highly popular “This is Our Mission” podcasts, and frequent speaking appearances at shows and events throughout the world.
“One of the things that impressed me the most about BrainChip when looking to join the company was the quality and volume of successes it has achieved, and the dedicated and talented team that are the heart of BrainChip’s success,” said Mr. Hehir. “As the company transfers from strength of vision to strength of production, the possibilities are endless. BrainChip is moving to market readiness, expansion of a product portfolio, improvements to human resources, and improvements in the stock market. I’m excited to see Akida’s impact on the $46B USD ‘Edge AI’ total addressable market (TAM) as BrainChip has unequivocally proved that it is the leader in the neuromorphic AI space. I look forward to seeing the kind of revolutionary moves we make in 2022.”