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Flow Computing, based in Helsinki, is a trailblazer in licensing ultra-high-performance parallel computing solutions for CPUs. Recently, the company raised $4.3 million from Nordic investors and businesses, emerging from stealth mode.
The company claims its technology can boost CPU performance by an unprecedented 100 times. These kinds of improvements are rarely seen, typically only achieved over many decades through small incremental gains in semiconductor manufacturing and chip design.
Flow’s technology can be integrated into any CPU design, instruction set, or process geometry, offering a massive 100-fold acceleration that’s immediately usable in traditional computer designs. This leap, termed “CPU 2.0,” provides significant throughput improvements.
Flow Computing is positioning itself to revolutionize CPU technology with their innovative Parallel Processing Unit (PPU), which integrates directly on-die and offers a dramatic performance boost without needing specialized hardware like GPUs. This addresses the increasing demand for more computing power driven by AI, edge, and cloud computing needs.
Their PPU is fully backward compatible with existing software, meaning parallel functionality in current applications can be significantly accelerated by recompiling for the PPU with no software changes necessary. The more PPU cores integrated, the greater the performance boost. Flow has tailored licenses for various CPU market segments, including mobile, PC, and supercomputers.
Flow’s technology enhances the entire device, boosting not just the CPU but all connected units like matrix units, vector units, NPUs, and GPUs. This holistic performance gain benefits the entire computing system.
They are already in talks with major semiconductor vendors globally and plan to release more technical details in the second half of 2024.
In Flow’s pre-seed funding round, investors included Butterfly Ventures, FOV Ventures, Sarsia, Stephen Industries, Superhero Capital, and Business Finland. Originating from the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, Flow Computing has officially taken over all the patented IP developed over several years.
VTT’s CEO, Antti Vasara, expressed excitement about Flow Computing’s innovations, emphasizing Finland’s move towards becoming a leading exporter of advanced semiconductor designs. Flow is seen as pivotal to enhancing the global computing ecosystem, benefiting major CPU designs like X86, Apple M-Series, Exynos, ARM, and RISC-V.
Juho Risku, cofounder of Butterfly Ventures, highlighted that the industry has been handicapped by the slow improvement rate in CPUs over the last decade. Flow’s groundbreaking approach promises massive performance leaps, more significant than what quantum computing is expected to achieve in this decade. By enabling the next generation of SuperCPUs, Flow Computing is set to surpass current industry leaders like Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, Arm, Google, and Microsoft.
Flow’s architecture also boosts performance in embedded systems and data centers, supporting applications in edge and cloud computing, AI clouds, multimedia codecs for 5G/6G, autonomous vehicles, military-grade computing, and more.