Positron targets memory-bound AI inference with a rapid FPGA-to-silicon path

Positron, co-founded by Thomas Summers and Edward Kmet in 2023, is developing hardware for AI inference with a focus on memory capacity and bandwidth. Mitesh Agarwal said he joined after seeing the demands of reasoning and video-generation models at Lambda; he cited a video model that needed four H100s to generate a 10-second clip and was constrained by memory.

The company shipped its first customer product in 15 months with fewer than 20 people, using FPGAs, and had recently surpassed 100 employees, with more than 50 added over the previous three months. Its 50 Atlas racks at Oracle are FPGA-based. Positron uses AI tools extensively for verification, design interaction and related work, but not yet to generate a new chip design; Agarwal expects that capability to emerge soon.