Bengaluru: British semiconductor company Graphcore, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group, is launching a new AI engineering campus in Bengaluru, planning to create 500 semiconductor jobs with up to £1 billion invested over the next decade.The engineering centre will be a core part of building advanced AI computing, contributing to SoftBank Group's goal of being the leading artificial superintelligence platform provider. Recruitment for the first 100 AI semiconductor engineering positions in India has already started, spanning roles in silicon logical design, physical design, verification, characterization, and chip bring-up.
We want this to be a parallel team taking full ownership of the products on the roadmap. So, in my mind, the idea of outsourcing or offshoring has very bad connotations. I see this much more as an integral part of the development team inside Graphcore that takes ownership, builds complete products, and manages the delivery of those products.
We are concentrating the software team in the UK, but over time, I see us building more capability in India. We plan to hire 500 people primarily in silicon roles, but I'm sure we will add other skills and capabilities as well, Nigel Toon, cofounder and CEO of Graphcore, told TOI. The Bengaluru engineers will develop semiconductor products for use in global AI applications, targeting areas like drug discovery, public health, sustainability, and business productivity. Today, we're building at 2nm and 3nm, the most advanced technology process cores with custom cells. This is absolutely leading-edge development.
We're looking for the best of the best to come and join us to help us on this mission to build the most advanced AI processor. We're looking across the board in terms of front-end design, physical design, and across these very highly complex chips and multiple chips that work together, Toon said. Since SoftBank acquired Graphcore last year, the company has joined major AI infrastructure initiatives, including the $500 billion Stargate project with OpenAI and Oracle.
