Name: Albert Liu, Kneron
Uploaded: 2025-12-09T18:06:00.000Z
Duration: 4 min 3 s

More from GSA Awards Celebration 2025

Albert Liu

CEO

Kneron

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Transcript

Albert Liu, Kneron

Albert Liu

CEO Kneron

In this segment from the GSA Awards Celebration, Albert Liu, founder and chairman of Kneron, joins theCUBE’s John Furrier to discuss the evolution and commercialization of Neural Network Processing Units (NPUs). Liu highlights Kneron’s status as a pioneer in the field, noting that the company is currently shipping millions of chips annually with multiple distinct products already in the market. The discussion sets the stage for how specialized silicon is moving beyond niche applications to become a standard in the global semiconductor landscape.

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Albert Liu, Kneron

John Furrier

>> Hello, I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. We are here in San Jose for the GSA Award celebration. Kind of a hallway, red carpet vibe. Albert Liu is the Founder and Chairman of Kneron. Great to see you coming on theCUBE. This is our show.

Albert Liu

>> Nice to see you.

John Furrier

>> What do you expect today? What do you guys do first? Explain what you do.

Albert Liu

>> We are doing the NPU, neural network process unit. So we are really the first company to commercialize NPU back to 10 years ago.

John Furrier

>> And what's the current status of the products now?

Albert Liu

>> We already have a millions chip shipping out annually. And I think so far, we have more than seven chips on the market.

John Furrier

>> And you just came from the airport. I noticed your luggage is right here.

Albert Liu

>> Yeah.

John Furrier

>> You came right from the airport, just landed.

Albert Liu

>> Yes, yes.

John Furrier

>> Are you excited for tonight?

Albert Liu

>> Yes. This is my eighth time to join the event.

John Furrier

>> You like the Oscars of semiconductors. It's like a big show.

Albert Liu

>> Yeah. Pretty much all the big guy will come.

John Furrier

>> All the big guys are here. I can tell there's a lot of deals being done. I just saw Nvidia CTO here. The head of networking is here. All the chip innovators are here. What are we going to expect tonight? What do you think is going to happen?

Albert Liu

>> We will always have some gathering for the top company in semi industry, CEOs gathering in the morning. And in the afternoon, we have some discussion talking about the semi trend and also most popular one definitely is the AI topic. And the dinner one definitely is just like an Oscar award, like what you say.

John Furrier

>> It's a fun night. We're going to be interviewing people backstage on the awards. What do you think is going to happen next year? This is a celebration. We're going to relax. It's end of the year. What do you think is going to happen next year?

Albert Liu

>> Next year, I think AI will be more popular. So definitely, AI will be more cheap, dedicated design for AI will go to every device and, of course, to the different industry.

John Furrier

>> What's your biggest innovations that you're working on right now for NPUs?

Albert Liu

>> NPU, you can treat that as technology migration from CPU to GPU to NPU. It's just like a VCD to DVD to MP3. So one NPU is quite tiny, but they can request bunch of DVD. Sorry, bunch of the GPU or a bunch of CPU. Right now, we all know that the ChatGPT powered by GPU is quite ... The energy consumes a lot of power, right? So the NPU can solve that kind of problem.

John Furrier

>> So it helps?

Albert Liu

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> You bundle them together. Is there an architecture that works the best?

Albert Liu

>> Yes. I think it's already kind of popular in your PC and your cell phone. And in the future, there will be even more in the human like robot or auto or everywhere.

John Furrier

>> Physical AI is hot. The edge is hot. The edge has wireless. All you got to do is put a little factory, AI factory on the wireless.

Albert Liu

>> Wireless? I think definitely wireless or communication will highly related to the AI computing. So the inter-chip communication is critical for AI processing. So then faster communication and also the more powerful, efficient architectures for AI will be more and more popular.

John Furrier

>> So you see networking with the wireless and AI coming together?

Albert Liu

>> Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

John Furrier

>> Well, great to have you on. Thanks for coming on our show. I really appreciate you. Looking good. Love the hat.

Albert Liu

>> Yeah. Thank you.

John Furrier

>> You want to say hello to anyone out there?

Albert Liu

>> Yeah. Hello.

John Furrier

>> Okay. All right, John Furrier here at the celebration, but this is a celebration, but it's a serious business, the AI infrastructure, the chips and all the connectivity around it, powering the world. We're here talking to all the people having a good time. It's the Oscars for semis. Thanks, Albert, for coming on.

Albert Liu

>> Thank you.

John Furrier

>> All right. We'll be back after this break.