Chinese chip start-up Biren Technology’s co-founder and General Manager of the Graphics GPU product line, Golf Jiao, has resigned. The exact reason for his resignation is unknown, but rumors about “disharmony” within Biren Technology’s R&D team have been circulating. Jiao has over 25 years of experience in GPU product architecture and R&D and hoped to have more input in determining the company’s direction regarding product R&D. Biren Technology’s founder and CEO, Michael Zhang, reportedly did not support Jiao’s desire to move the company into the graphics GPU field while also limiting investment in resources towards its development. The company’s official website has removed the press release about the launch of its new graphics GPU product line, and as of March 27, there has been no official announcement regarding Jiao’s resignation.
Chinese Chip Startup Biren Technology Loses Co-Founder and GM of Graphics GPU Product Line
Golf Jiao, the co-founder and General Manager of the Graphics GPU product line at Biren Technology, has reportedly resigned, according to insider sources cited in a report by Chinese media outlet Guancha on March 25.
Biren Technology is a Chinese chip start-up founded in September 2019 that specializes in developing general-purpose GPUs for fields such as AI training and inference. The company recently completed its Series B financing round with a total amount raised exceeding 5 billion yuan ($726.6 million). Biren Technology made headlines in August 2022 when it released its first universal GPU chip BR100, which set a global computing power record with over 1,000T floating-point computing power and over 2,000T fixed-point computing power. Its peak single-chip performance reached PFLOPS level.
Jiao, who has more than 25 years of experience in GPU product architecture and research & development, was previously the head of Qualcomm’s GPU team where he developed five generations of classic Qualcomm Adreno mobile GPU architectures. He also served as Chief Scientist for Huawei Futurewei’s department and was responsible for graphic image processing and UI system framework.
The exact reason for Jiao’s resignation is still unknown, but prior to the report, rumors circulated about “disharmony” within Biren Technology’s R&D team. Some insiders, however, have claimed that these reports were unfounded.
As a technical expert, Jiao had hoped to have more input in determining Biren Technology’s direction regarding product R&D. He was also interested in entering the field of graphics GPUs, which have greater consumer demand compared to GPGPUs, currently dominated by NVIDIA. In September 2022, Biren Technology announced the launch of a new graphics GPU product line with Jiao leading the team.
Related article: Chinese Chip Startup Biren Technology Cuts Staff Due to TSMC Supply Suspension
Biren Technology’s Founder and CEO Michael Zhang and Jiao’s Resignation
Michael Zhang, the founder and CEO of Biren Technology, has an extensive background in law and finance, having worked for the United Nations and on Wall Street for many years. He served as President of SenseTime, a leading AI company, from 2018 to 2019. There are reports that Zhang did not support Jiao’s desire to move Biren Technology into the graphics GPU field while also limiting investment in resources towards its development.
As of March 27, Biren Technology has not made an official statement regarding Jiao’s resignation. The company’s official website has removed the press release about the launch of its new graphics GPU product line.
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