GSA Awards Celebration 2025 | Erik Goodman, Tenstorrent

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Erik Goodman

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Tenstorrent

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play_circle_outline Networking Insights: Tenstorrent CFO Erik Discusses AI Hardware Growth at Industry Leaders Event

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Erik Goodman, Tenstorrent

Erik Goodman

CFO Tenstorrent

In this interview from the GSA Awards Celebration, Erik Goodman, chief financial officer of Tenstorrent, joins theCUBE’s John Furrier to discuss the semiconductor industry’s pivot from a year of uncertainty to one of unstoppable demand. Goodman breaks down Tenstorrent’s approach to AI hardware, detailing how the company is optimizing CPUs for AI workloads and monetizing IP across developer and data center markets. He highlights the "rollercoaster" nature of the past year and predicts that the accelerated investment in compute infrastructure will continue at a... Read more

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What are the thoughts on the semiconductor industry's performance this year and the outlook for the next year? add

What is the current state of business in AI and related technologies, and how is the company positioning itself for emerging applications? add

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Erik Goodman, Tenstorrent

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John Furrier

>> Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We are here in San Jose for the gala awards event. This is the GSA Award Celebration, and this is like the Oscars of the semiconductor industry. Erik is here. He's the CFO of Tenstorrent, a very fast-growing company. What's your revenue? No, I'm only kidding. You can share. Great to have you on.

Erik Goodman

>> Thank you.

John Furrier

>> So this is a celebration. Looking back this year, how would you classify this year? It's the end of the year. We're celebrating a big event.

Erik Goodman

>> Yeah. Well, industry-wide this year was a rollercoaster ride. It was unclear how demand would continue to grow. And as we exit the year, demand has been unstoppable and the industry continues to invest and accelerate advancements in compute. It's incredible.

John Furrier

>> It's amazing. And I think next year will be a tour at pace. I don't see it stopping.

Erik Goodman

>> I agree. I don't see any end in sight.

John Furrier

>> All right. So you must be holding onto the rocket ship as you guys grow. Explain what you guys do real quick for the folks watching.

Erik Goodman

>> Sure, yeah. We do AI hardware, so specifically CPUs that are optimized for AI workloads. And we sell those in developer boxes or data center boxes. And we monetize the IP that goes into the CPU design as well.

John Furrier

>> So you have the hardware and the IP?

Erik Goodman

>> And the IP.

John Furrier

>> Great. And business is good. Obviously AI is booming. I just came back from re:Invent, just got off a plane. They're rocking. Cloud, edge is coming.

Erik Goodman

>> Yes, everything's coming.

John Furrier

>> I mean, the edge is a whole nother dimension.

Erik Goodman

>> Yep, yep. Exactly.

John Furrier

>> You guys will do well there.

Erik Goodman

>> I think there's a number of new applications that are going to emerge in the next few years. So we're focused on enabling the technology, enabling the software models, and then positioning the technology to be adaptable and versatile for all of those potential markets.

John Furrier

>> How would you classify this event here, this Gala Awards? I mean, everybody's here. It's not like a very showy-

Erik Goodman

>> No....

John Furrier

>> pompous ...

Erik Goodman

>> Semiconductors never is.

John Furrier

>> It's really the nuts and bolts, but these are the people building stuff. They're up there. You can go up to the VIP room and bump into CEOs, chat with folks.

Erik Goodman

>> Yeah. Some of the smartest people in the world, I would say, are in the room here and now. And it's really a fascinating experience to be able to see how down to earth some of these legends are that are so critical to the architecture and the technology developments that have been discovered.

John Furrier

>> Yeah. It's our first time here, so I'm blown away. Love the vibe, for sure. How many of these have you been to?

Erik Goodman

>> This is the first one actually. I have-

John Furrier

>> First one for you? Okay. So you haven't been to other ones, huh?

Erik Goodman

>> I've been to technology conferences specifically focused on semiconductors, but this is my first time at GSA.

John Furrier

>> This more of a party/let your hair down a little bit, let some air out of the balloon, but people are just really celebrating. Again, looking back on this year, I think the AI infrastructure is probably one of the most important trends because the AI infrastructure is a shift. There's a shift happening.

Erik Goodman

>> There is.

John Furrier

>> It's not just a continuation of same old, same old.

Erik Goodman

>> That's right. It's a macro shift, and I think we're going to look back 10 years from now and see this time period as pivotal for the industry.

John Furrier

>> I was just at the AWS re:Invent conference and one of the things they announced was this Nova Forge where they can give you a half-baked model. And although very cool, we'll see how that works out. But what it means is that you can start taking the models and apply it to diverse infrastructure. So it's not just the GPUs anymore, it's everything.

Erik Goodman

>> It's everything. That's incredible.

John Furrier

>> So now you've got this mixed bag of architecture based upon the use case, like an edge box and a retail outlet, could be a small little thing, talking to a big factory, connected via the network, converge all the wireless, spectrum on license, and have backhaul on ethernet.

Erik Goodman

>> It's not so difficult to imagine that that is true given where we're at with our specific technology because we see the potential of applying this level of compute to multiple applications. Robotics, automotive is ripe for disruption with this level-

John Furrier

>> Are those the hot areas right now in your mind?

Erik Goodman

>> Yes.

John Furrier

>> What are the hot areas? Robotics?

Erik Goodman

>> Yeah. Automotive, autonomous driving, all of the sensing and the compute required for that sensing is a really, I would say, disruptive, ripe for disruption.

John Furrier

>> This is very nuanced, Erik, and I love that you brought that out. I want to really quickly get your thoughts on this because most people think they see the stock price of NVIDIA, oh, the big, fat GPUs, but you're just talking about sensors in the car. Now, they got GPUs too.

Erik Goodman

>> Of course.

John Furrier

>> I mean, they got chassis in Mercedes now built for data centers inside a car. We're going to have a car to have a data center in them.

Erik Goodman

>> Exactly. You're going to be driving around, yeah.

John Furrier

>> But they also got other stuff in there too. Sensors, LiDAR, all this stuff. That's a data center.

Erik Goodman

>> And all of that data collected by those sensors has to be processed, and that's where we're positioning our technology is to be able to do that in real time. The ability to recognize is that a fire hydrant, is it a dog, is it a child on a bike, that is critical technology to enable safe technology, a safe experience.

John Furrier

>> Safe physical AI, and that's where you have real time matters.

Erik Goodman

>> Real time matters.

John Furrier

>> You need more compute for that.

Erik Goodman

>> That's right.

John Furrier

>> So what's the bottleneck? Supply chain? What? I mean, basically you got the IP. It's hardware.

Erik Goodman

>> The bottleneck is automotive supply chain is hard to disrupt. That's number one. And then producing the hardware, number two. And then getting the form factor right, that's really challenging.

John Furrier

>> Awesome. Well, great to have you on. Real quick, how's business? Business good? You're the CFO.

Erik Goodman

>> Business is great.

John Furrier

>> Balance sheet looking good? Income statement looking good?

Erik Goodman

>> We just kicked off a Series E raise and we're optimistic. We have a ton of investors that are really proud and want to see us win. So yeah, we're excited.

John Furrier

>> Yeah, and you tell them theCUBE sent you, you get a discount on the valuation. Only kidding. Good luck. Thank you very much.

Erik Goodman

>> Yeah, thank you so much.

John Furrier

>> Thanks for coming on.

Erik Goodman

>> Great to be here.

John Furrier

>> Okay. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE. We are here at the gala event. This is a celebration. All the leaders coming down here, and actually, it's great biz dev too, people talking in the hallways. You can see the industry still on a robust torrent tear and it's going to continue for the next year. Keep watching theCUBE. Of course, we've got it all covered for you. Thanks for watching.