LG working with Jim Keller on new ‘Affectionate Intelligence’ processor

LG and Tenstorrent have announced that they will expand their collaboration efforts. The tech twosome already has some SoC plans in progress, but today they voiced the intention to develop new AI chips to push forward LS’s concept of ‘Affectionate Intelligence’ in AI-powered home appliances, smart home solutions, mobility, and commercial applications.

While Affectionate Intelligence may be merely LG’s marketing Twist on AI, like Cupertino’s ‘Apple Intelligence,’ we are sure there is some serious chip design going on in the background – thanks to chip icon Jim Keller’s involvement and some other clues in today’s press release.

In our main picture, you can see LG CEO William Cho meeting with Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller at the LG Twin Towers in Yeouido, Seoul. Other senior execs were there, from both companies, to discuss the plans for expanded collaboration.

Regular readers, with some familiarity with Tenstorrent’s recent projects, won’t be surprised that next-gen semiconductors including processors using the RISC-V architecture and multiple chiplets were hot topics during the discussions. The tech CEOs warmly praised each other, with Cho saying Keller’s firm “is bringing the industry’s best AI and RISC-V technology to this collaboration.” Keller’s response was that “LG has a strong SoC development organization and Tenstorrent is excited to continue to partner with them.” The chip architecture icon behind the Athlon 64 and Zen architectures went on to underline that any future ‘Affectionate Intelligence’ SoCs would likely come packing “our AI and RISC-V technology.”

LG recently established a dedicated SoC R&D center specializing in system semiconductor design and development, which should help along any collaborative chip design efforts. According to the press release this facility excels in chiplet-based SoC design, development, and verification. SoCs that have already come from this lab include the DQ-C for AI home appliances and the Alpha 11 AI Processor for OLED TVs.

Tenstorrent’s success in expanding its LG collaboration seems very much in line with its publicly stated strategy of looking for design wins in markets “not well served by Nvidia.” While Tenstorrent seems fully capable of designing high-performance RISC-V CPUs and AI accelerators like the Wormhole, a profitable high-volume niche in mass-market consumer goods could be a great opportunity to embrace.