Inventor to Founder: From 150 IBM Patents to a European AI Chip - How Inventions Become a Company
A patented invention is not a company.
What sits in between is where deep tech founders get stuck: what to patent, what to keep quiet, when to leave the safe job and how a working principle turns into a product you can actually ship.
Evangelos Eleftheriou has done both. 35 years at IBM Research, more than 150 patents, and a detection technology that became the industry standard for reading data off hard discs.
In 2021 he co-founded Axelera AI, one of Europe's best-funded AI semiconductor companies.
Takeaways:
How to tell when your technology is ready to become a company.
Patent logic inside a corporation versus inside a startup.
The obstacles between lab prototype and first customer, and what takes longer than planned.
🎤 Speaker
Evangelos Eleftheriou
Evangelos Eleftheriou, an IEEE and IBM Fellow, is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Axelera AI, a best-in-class performance company that develops a game-changing hardware and software platform for AI.As a CTO, Evangelos oversees the development and dissemination of technology for external customers, vendors, and other clients to help improve and increase Axelera AI’s business.Before his current role, Evangelos worked for IBM Research – Zurich, where he held various management positions for over 35 years. His outstanding achievements led him to become an IBM Fellow, which is IBM’s highest technical honour.In 2002, Evangelos became a Fellow of the IEEE, and later in 2003, he was co-recipient of the IEEE ComS Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award. He was also co-recipient of the 2005 Technology Award of the Eduard Rhein Foundation. In 2005, he was appointed an IBM Fellow and inducted into the IBM Academy of Technology. In 2009, he was co-recipient of the IEEE Control Systems Technology Award and the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award. In 2016, Evangelos received an honoris causa professorship from the University of Patras, Greece. In 2018, he was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering as Foreign Member. Evangelos has authored or coauthored over 250 publications and holds over 160 patents (granted and pending applications).His primary interests lie in AI and machine learning, including emerging computing paradigms such as neuromorphic and in-memory computing.Evangelos holds a PhD and a Master of Eng. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Carleton University, Canada, and a BSc in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece.
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Über Axelera AI
Axelera AI ist ein führendes unabhängiges europäisches Halbleiterunternehmen für KI-Beschleunigung. Das Kerngeschäft ist die Entwicklung und Vermarktung leistungsfähiger und energieeffizienter KI-Beschleuniger inklusive Chips, Hardware und Software.
Das Alleinstellungsmerkmal (USP) liegt in der proprietären, vollständig digitalen In-Memory-Computing-Architektur: Rechenoperationen werden näher am Speicher ausgeführt, wodurch KI-Anwendungen effizient und mit geringem Energiebedarf verarbeitet werden können. Im Unterschied zu analogen In-Memory-Computing-Ansätzen vermeidet Axelera AI dabei wesentliche Nachteile hinsichtlich Rauschen und Zuverlässigkeit. Gleichzeitig bietet das Unternehmen eine integrierte Hardware- und Softwareplattform und stärkt als einer der größten europäischen Anbieter von KI-Halbleitern die technologische Souveränität Europas im strategisch wichtigen Bereich der KI-Infrastruktur.