Qualcomm is in talks to acquire AI chip design startup Tenstorrent, The Information reported on June 15, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The report said Qualcomm is pursuing the acquisition of Tenstorrent at $8 billion to $10 billion.

Talks are ongoing and the price could change or the negotiations could fall apart, The Information reported.

Qualcomm, which derives a large share of its revenue from smartphone and PC chips, has been looking for ways to expand its stake in the AI chip market. Last year it acquired British semiconductor company Alphawave Semi for $2.4 billion, it said.

Tenstorrent was founded by Jim Keller (짐 켈러), who developed processors for iPhones and iPads and led development of Tesla Autopilot hardware from 2016 to 2018. The company has emphasized that it can handle certain AI workloads more efficiently than Nvidia GPUs.

It is developing chips based on RISC-V, an open-source CPU design approach, and has raised more than $1 billion from Fidelity, AFW Partners and Eclipse Ventures, among others. Hyundai and Kia are also investors and partners.

ㆍ[Exclusive] Jim Keller's AI chip startup 'Tenstorrent' enters the South Korean market

In addition to Qualcomm, big tech companies such as Nvidia and Meta have recently acquired AI chip startups. Meta acquired chip startup Rivos, founded by former Apple engineers, in October last year.