Nvidia's (NVDA.O) dominant position in the AI chip market due to a powerful combination of hardware and software has scared off potential investors in some startups, according to sources Reuters interviewed. "This is capital that understands what it takes to build a semiconductor business," CEO Sid Sheth told Reuters. The company designs the chips with digital "in-memory compute" that enables AI computer code to run more efficiently. The company's chip technology uses less energy to crunch data required to spit out generative AI responses, and is optimized for such tasks. Microsoft has committed to evaluating the chip for its own use when it launches next year, Sheth told Reuters.

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Persons: Dado Ruvic, Sid Sheth, Santa Clara, Sheth, Sasha Ostojic, Max A, Stephen Coates Organizations: REUTERS, Microsoft Corp, Reuters, Nvidia, Temasek, Palo, Playground Global, Microsoft, Thomson Locations: Singapore, Palo Alto , California, Santa, San Francisco