Nigel Toon is the CEO and Co-Founder of Graphcore, a British company that develops next-generation processors for artificial intelligence workloads. He has a strong background as an entrepreneur and a proven history of leading engineering teams to create innovative technological products. Toon is also the author of “How AI Thinks” and holds a doctorate from the University of Bristol.
Nigel Toon studied engineering and earned his first degree at Heriot-Watt University. He later received a Doctor of Science from Bristol University. This solid educational foundation provided him with a strong technical background and passion for technological innovation. Throughout his career, Nigel has successfully combined his engineering skills with strategic executive leadership, driving advancements in the semiconductor design industry and AI hardware development.
Nigel’s vast career includes serving as Vice President and General Manager for Europe at Altera Corporation and driving the business unit to more than $400 million in revenue. He co-founded Icera, a 3G modem chip company that NVIDIA acquired for $435 million. Toon also served as the CEO of Picochip, then XMOS, before co-founding Graphcore in 2016, where he now leads the company’s development in AI processors and international expansion.
Graphcore is changing AI with cutting-edge Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs), strategic partnerships and ecosystem expansions. The company is evolving the processing of AI workloads faster, smarter and more efficiently while sparking global innovation across industries ranging from data centres to generative AI.
Graphcore and UbiOps: Graphcore has partnered with UbiOps to make it simpler and faster to run advanced AI models. This allows developers to quickly train models and deploy massive AI workloads that require powerful computers, such as generative AI and fine-tuning large language models, at lower cost and without the burdensome need for complex infrastructure.
Graphcore and VMware: Graphcore is partnering with VMware to transform enterprise AI by solving the last mile of enterprise AI throughput, deployed in the form of seamlessly scalable sharing of powerful IPU resources; Project Radium.
Graphcore and Arm: Graphcore has collaborated with Arm to build next generation AI chips for data centres. By leveraging the most advanced chip architecture combined with AI expertise, they are laying the foundations for another transformative step change in performance and global leadership in AI innovation.
AI Adoption: Graphcore's entry in India under the leadership of ex-Cray executive Sudhakar Yerneni is an audacious effort to drive AI adoption. Graphcore will utilize its state-of-the-art IPU systems to enable breakthroughs in national projects across healthcare, finance, energy, agriculture, and research.
Geographical Expansion: Graphcore is powered by OpenStack to accelerate AI and machine learning workloads and flexible, high-performance infrastructure with its state-of-the-art IPU systems. This combination drives unparalleled scalability, performance, efficiency, and breakthroughs in research, private sector enterprises, and public sector AI-driven projects worldwide.
Integrating IPU Technology: Graphcore is poised to disrupt the AI chip market by harnessing its groundbreaking IPU technology to rival NVIDIA, drive artificial general intelligence (AGI) advancements, and expand global AI capabilities through next-generation semiconductor innovation and strategic market leadership.
Advancing IPU: Graphcore is revolutionizing AI with its game-changing Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), offering 10x–100x performance over conventional chips. Purpose-built for machine learning, it powers faster, smarter AI training and inference, cementing Graphcore’s lead in the rapidly expanding AI chip race.
Graphcore and PyTorch: Graphcore’s entry into the PyTorch Foundation as a general member brings native IPU integrations to the platform. This allows developers to tap into cutting-edge AI hardware while having the comfort of PyTorch’s familiarity in fueling faster research, bold innovation, and wider AI accessibility.
Nigel Toon has had a remarkable career and is currently serving as a senior non-executive director on the board of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). He played a crucial role in helping Graphcore secure over $700 million in funding, leading to a valuation of $2.8 billion.
Toon also guided Picochip to its acquisition by Mindspeed Technologies. He has been a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Business Council and ranked first on Business Insider’s ‘100 most influential people shaping British technology.’
Nigel Toon has not been involved in any personal controversies. However, he faced public scrutiny due to business challenges at Graphcore, including legal disputes, issues regarding equity capabilities, and strategic failures. Despite these challenges, there have been no doubts about his integrity or character.