Data center AI chip startup Ceremorphic has opened a life sciences division to search out and bring to market drugs based on a new technology platform, BioCompDiscoverX. The platform includes a heterogeneous accelerator partly based on analog silicon, which accelerates the emulation of human cells and tissues as part of the drug discovery process. The company aims to identify better candidate molecules from the start of the process, thereby bringing new drugs to market faster and cheaper.

Ceremorphic emerged from stealth mode in 2022 with its QS1 chip for data center AI acceleration. The company was founded in 2020 by Venkat Mattela based on development work carried out since 2017 at his previous startup, Redpine Signals, which was sold to Silicon Labs in 2020. Mattela kept Redpine’s AI processor development team and some key pieces of IP. Patents relating to ThreadArch—Redpine’s multi-thread processor macro-architecture—were licensed to Silicon Labs, but can still be used by Ceremorphic, for example.
 

Ceremorphic founder and CEO Mattela told EE Times that drug discovery was the plan from the start.

“The problem today in life sciences is that the total number of diseases known is approximately 10,000, but the cures available are only around 500,” Mattela said. “There is a big gap in terms of progress or development efficiency versus need.”