Rain AI hires former Apple chip exec to lead its hardware engineering

Rain AI, an AI hardware processor developer backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and investment banks, has hired Jean-Didier Allegrucci, a former Apple chip executive, to lead its hardware engineering, reports Tom’s Hardware.

Jean-Didier Allegrucci worked on Apple’s system-on-chips (SoCs) for over 17 years since June 2007 and oversaw development of more than 30 processors used for iPhones, Macs, iPads, and Apple Watch. Based on a Rain AI blog post, Allegrucci was instrumental to build Apple’s world-class SoC development team, overseeing areas such as SoC methodology, architecture, design, integration, and verification, so his experience will be extremely valuable for Rain AI. 

“We could not be more excited to have a hardware leader of J-D’s caliber overseeing our silicon efforts,” Rain AI CEO William Passo told Tom’s Hardware. “Our novel compute-in-memory (CIM) technology will help unlock the true potential of today’s generative AI models, and get us one step closer to running the fastest, cheapest, and most advanced AI models anywhere.”