In today’s episode of RCRTV’s AI TechTalk, semiconductor visionary Jean-Philippe Fricker says that accomplishing the feat of a plate-sized silicon wafer took tremendous confidence on the part of each and every member of the 5-person team that founded Cerebras, which just recently raised $5.55 billion in the largest IPO of the year, so far.

To defy conventional semiconductor wisdom, the team had to avoid the pitfall of getting mired in the particulars of what made others fail before them. Rather than tailoring their thinking to the packaging that was available to them at the time, they had to think about the fundamental physics and constraints related to making a very large chip, and instead focus on “the training, experimentation, and basic tinkering to figure out that what is in the textbook pertains to someone else’s expertise and experiences, not your own,” according to Fricker. 

See how he and the other co-founders got past the skepticism, ultimately spreading the contagion of confidence to VCs and investors, customers, manufacturers and anyone else that could potentialy believe in their vision that an entire, massive AI model could fit onto a single piece of silicon to dramatically reduce network lag and memory bottlenecks.

Watch the video and read the highlights in today’s top story.

Cerebras’ JP Fricker: Getting investors, VCs and deal teams to believe in your “crazy idea” takes a contagious type of confidence and belief that you and your co-founding team members have what it takes to succeed where others have failed.

Shanghai’s underwater data center: China’s first offshore wind-powered underwater data center, 10 meters under the sea, cuts electricity consumption by 22.8%, eliminates water usage and reduces land requirements by more than 90%.  

Modernizing defense infrastructure: Defense communications require networks that sense, compute, coordinate and drive decision-making across the battlespace. AI at the edge, satellite coverage, and private 5G are part of modernization efforts.