The AI compute landscape was jolted in February 2026 by Taalas, a Canadian startup founded by former AMD and NVIDIA architect Ljubisa Bajic. Emerging with an unconventional “Model-Based” chip architecture, which bypasses software to hardwire model structures, parameters, and weights directly into silicon, Taalas emerged from stealth after raising over US$219 million in cumulative funding. Less than six months later, in early August, AMD agreed to acquire Taalas to bolster its strategic position in AI inference.