The Compute 100

Today’s guests are Barun Kar, CEO, and Rajiv Khemani, Executive Chairman at Upscale AI.Barun and Rajiv are multi-time founders in networking silicon. Between them they helped build Cavium, Innovium, Palo Alto Networks and Juniper’s MX series before co-founding Auradine, where they incubated Upscale AI before spinning it out. Upscale builds the switch silicon, systems and software that connect AI chips to each other using open standards.We dig into why AI clusters need a network built around memory reads and writes between chips, not the packet switching that cloud networks were designed for, and why Barun and Rajiv chose open standards over a proprietary fabric like NVLink. They explain how a networking startup works with hyperscalers on their custom chips, why it sells complete systems to new clouds and enterprises, and how the AI buildout could make networking a trillion dollar market.From switch silicon to supply chains, we discuss:How scale-up and scale-out networks workWhere copper, optics and optical switches fitWhy open standards matter for AI chipsWhat a network operating system doesHow Upscale secures its supply chainBuilding culture while scaling to 300 peopleTimestamps:0:00 Introduction1:05 Why AI needs a new network5:21 Why cloud-era chips fall short for AI9:05 Scale-up and scale-out inside an AI rack14:47 The Auradine spin-out and Upscale’s founding story19:30 Memory semantics versus packet switching26:14 From Cavium and Palo Alto Networks to Upscale30:50 Competition and the system-level advantage34:19 What a network operating system does35:24 Optics and optical switching40:33 Selling to hyperscalers, new clouds and enterprises46:04 How big AI networking could get49:04 Securing supply across the chain53:31 Building at the forefront of AI56:17 Beyond networking: what comes next1:02:23 Building culture in a fast-growing companyThe Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary’s compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).Follow us on X and check out our daily newsletter.This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.

Today’s guest is Jascha Achterberg, co-founder and CTO of Callosum. Jascha started with his Cambridge PhD collaborator Danyal Akarca (CEO), London-based Callosum is building infrastructure that matches complex AI workloads to specialized models and chips. The company has raised a $100 million seed round led by Atomico, with significant participation from Plural, DCVC, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund.Jascha’s bet is that the future of compute is heterogeneous: different chips working together on different parts of a problem. We’ll dig into the commercialization opportunity: discover where each architecture excels, help chipmakers find production workloads, and let enterprises adopt new compute without replacing the stack they already trust. It is all in pursuit of faster, cheaper, and more capable computing systems, which is the biggest prize in infrastructure today. Beyond the multichip future, we discuss: What neuroscience taught Jascha about designing computing systemsHow chipmakers discover what their hardware is best atWhere thermodynamic, biological, and quantum computing could fitHiring people who welcome having their ideas challengedBuilding an AI infrastructure company in LondonTimestamps:0:00 Introduction2:55 What heterogeneous computing actually means11:02 From PhD research to Callosum18:36 Turning heterogeneous compute into a product23:24 Sourcing compute and working with chipmakers28:53 Matching workloads to the right hardware34:24 What heterogeneous computing can do today38:29 The next waves of chips48:02 Building the team51:33 Why build in London?56:11 Helping enterprises upgrade their compute stacks1:01:04 Fundraising and building momentum1:03:40 Where specialization wins, and where it doesn’tAnd a few links mentioned in the show: Callosum’s recent results on heterogeneous inference deployments: https://www.callosum.com/blog/programmable-heterogeneityBlog post on Callosum’s theoretical research on heterogeneity across computing, economic, and biological systems: https://www.callosum.com/blog/the-principle-of-maximum-heterogeneityThe Compute 100 is led by ⁠Brian Schechter⁠ and ⁠Gaby Lorenzi⁠, compute-focused investors at ⁠Primary⁠. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary’s compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).The Compute 100 is led by ⁠Brian Schechter⁠ and ⁠Gaby Lorenzi⁠, compute-focused investors at ⁠Primary⁠. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary’s compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).Follow us on ⁠X⁠ and check out our ⁠daily newsletter⁠.This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.

Today's guest is Austin Lyons, the writer behind Chipstrat.Austin started his career as an engineer — graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois under semiconductor physicist Eric Pop, followed by time at Intel. From there, he made the shift to analysis and writing, building Chipstrat into one of the most widely-read independent newsletters covering semiconductors, optics, networking, and physical AI. Austin is one of those rare people who can actually read the silicon and explain the market. When people want to know what is really happening in the compute stack, Austin's work is where many of them turn first.We're excited to have him on for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of the chip industry.Austin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinlyons/The Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary's compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).Primary: https://www.primary.vc/Follow us on X and check out our daily newsletter.This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.

Today's guest is Naveen Rao, co-founder and CEO of Unconventional AI.Naveen has built two startups before Unconventional AI, both at critical inflection points in the AI market, often early to trends the world had yet to see. He founded Nervana, acquired by Intel for over $400M, then MosaicML, acquired by Databricks for $1.3B, after which he led AI at Databricks. Now he's after his magnum opus: chips inspired by the architecture of the brain that can run AI at a fraction of today's energy cost. As power becomes the defining constraint on scaling AI, Naveen's thesis is that biology-scale efficiency is the only path forward.Unconventional AI launched with nearly half a billion dollars at a $4.5B valuation — one of the largest seed rounds ever, backed by Lightspeed, a16z, Sequoia, Lux, DCVC, and Jeff Bezos. Our conversation covered Naveen’s career, the market moment for Unconventional, their early product releases, and his belief that the future of compute will mirror how the physical world computes. Thank you Naveen for joining us! Naveen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveengrao/The Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary's compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).Primary: https://www.primary.vc/Follow us on X and check out our daily newsletter.This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.

Today's guest is Patrick Bowen, CEO of Neurophos.Patrick's path into chips started at age nine, when a neighbor taught him to build radios from Radio Shack kits and handed him a college EE textbook, which Patrick read cover to cover, homework included. He later double-majored in physics and EE, then did his PhD at Duke under David R. Smith, the physicist who built the first real invisibility cloak out of metamaterials. As Patrick puts it, "there's no market for cloaks." But the trick behind them, engineering materials smaller than the wavelength of light, became the seed for Neurophos. The company shrinks optical modulators 10,000x smaller than what's on the market, packing a million onto a fingernail-sized chip instead of one the size of a card table. That density powers Neurophos's T100 optical processing unit, which aims for 50x more compute per wafer. Neurophos closed a $110M Series A backed by Microsoft's M12 earlier this year. We're thrilled to have Patrick on the podcast for a conversation about the physics case for optical over digital compute, why he's targeting the prefill half of inference over decode, and what it will take to make photonics real at data center scale.Patrick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ptbowen/The Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary's compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe).Primary: https://www.primary.vc/Follow us on X (https://x.com/thecompute100) and check out our daily newsletter (https://newsletter.thecompute100.com/).This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.