Rado Danilak, Co-founder and CEO at Tachyum talks about Hyperscale data center as well as AI/HPC workloads.
1. Tell us about your role at Tachyum.
I am a co-founder and the CEO of Tachyum. I am also the lead architect for our flagship Prodigy processor.
2. What are the applications or rather opportunities you seek to have with your product?
Prodigy is the world’s first Universal Processor, capable of delivering best-in-breed performance across data center, AI and HPC workloads. It outperforms the fastest Intel Xeon at 10x lower core power and 3x lower cost per MIPS. Our primary market is hyperscale data centers, where Prodigy will reduce TCO (total annual cost of operations) by a factor of 4x, saving hyperscalers billions of dollars per year. Currently, server utilization is less than 50% during off-peak hours. Since idle Prodigy-powered servers can be powered back up as AI Training / Inference machines, Prodigy will provide 10x the AI resources as currently provisioned – CAPEX free (since the servers are already provisioned).
3. How did you define the vision of Tachyum?
Tachyum’s mission is to transform data centers into Universal Computing Centers, providing normal data center services, plus low cost Big-AI, and HPC on demand. Prodigy’s ultra-low power will enable continued data center expansion worldwide, for at least 10-15 years, without running out of electricity. Its ability to deal with AI and HPC workloads will result in one-stop shopping for cloud-based computer resources, no matter what the application.
4. What are some of the unique lessons you have learnt from analysing your customer behaviour?
I’ve learned that customers want solutions, not technology. We are applying our technology in ways that provide the customer with a high impact, bottom line business value proposition: 4x lower TCO (Total annual Cost of Operations).
5. What are some of the distinctive features of Tachyum? And how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
Hyperscale data center capacity is doubling every 3-4 years, and AI is reportedly growing at up to a 175% CAGR .Tachyum’s flagship product, Prodigy, is the world’s first Universal Processor. It is the only processor that can seamlessly switch from data center workloads, to AI and/or HPC workloads, while delivering best-in-breed performance across all three disciplines.
6. Tachyum was recently in the news for Joining UEFI Forum as a Contributor Member to Help Advance the State of the Technology Market. Can you elaborate more on the same?
Tachyum has announced that it will be supplying OEM and ODM partners with Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification-based BIOS replacement firmware, including source code, for its Prodigy Universal Processor Chips in advance of the hardware’s production-ready status in 2021. To date, Tachyum has achieved successful completion of not only the UEFI but of the Linux kernel, Toolchain, compilers including AI, debuggers, x86/ARM/RISC-V binary emulators and ported applications.
7. What are some of the common pain points that your customers commonly approach you with?
The two most common pain points for our hyperscale customers are: power and h/w underutilization. The number of servers provisioned in a hyperscale data center is dictated by peak customer demand. However, during off-peak hours, hyperscalers power down over 50% of their servers to save electricity costs. Prodigy eliminates the need to make these hard choices, by enabling hyperscalers to power up unused servers as AI and/or HPC resources – CAPEX free, since they are already purchased and on the books.
8. What advice would you like to give to the upcoming tech start-ups?
Hire a world class team without exception, and inspire passion within that team for a shared view of the Company Mission. Highly competent people, working together to achieve a well-defined vision, will tend to succeed more often than not.
9. Can you give us a sneak peek into some of the upcoming product upgrades that your customers can look forward to?
Tachyum has already begun work on Prodigy2, but we will not be releasing any information on our second-generation Prodigy processor until sometime in 2021.
10. Which is the one tech breakthrough you will be on the lookout for in the upcoming year?
The successful ramp up of 5G and all the possibilities for the technology.
11. Please share a recent piece of content (can be a video, podcast, blog, movie, webinar) you liked that set you thinking about in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zubWUys_pUU Start-up Grind – How to Build and Sell a Successful Company
12. What is the one quote that has stayed with you throughout your professional life?
“That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”
Dr. Radoslav Danilak
Co-founder and CEO at Tachyum
“Rado” Danilak has over 25 years of industry experience and over 100 patents designing state-of-the-art processing systems. In 2016 he founded Tachyum to disrupt markets by solving the processing performance plateau of nanometer class chips.
