Efficient Computer Emerges from Stealth to Introduce World's Most Energy-Efficient General-Purpose Computer Chip

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Mar 07, 2024, 09:00 ET

Company secures $16 million seed round to unveil a transformative processor architecture and usher in a new era of energy-efficient computing

PITTSBURGH, March 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Efficient Computer emerged from stealth today, introducing a new computer processor that is up to 100x more energy efficient than leading general-purpose CPUs on the market today. With a $16 million seed funding round led by Eclipse, Efficient has created a transformative computer architecture and software stack that delivers unprecedented levels of energy efficiency. The introduction of Efficient's processor marks the beginning of a new era of general-purpose edge computing that frees a wide range of applications from restrictive energy limitations. The technology enables a quantum leap in device capabilities and battery lifetime, unleashing a wave of innovations in devices and applications across the Internet of Things, wearable and implantable health devices, space systems, and security and defense.

Devices in these domains are increasingly doing more processing locally, creating a demand for more efficient on-device computing solutions. Shifting computation on-device can save large amounts of energy by avoiding expensive off-device communication to the cloud. Existing general-purpose processors are over-designed for generality, spending an overwhelming majority of their energy (>99%) on inessential internal data movement and instruction control overheads. Scaling performance requires complex, power-hungry optimizations that increase energy consumption further. The inefficiency of these designs rapidly kills the battery, limiting a device's capability and requiring frequent battery recharges or replacements.

Efficient's novel Fabric architecture is a unique approach to general-purpose computation that eliminates the extreme energy overheads of existing general-purpose computer architectures. Efficient's new architecture enables dramatically more energy-efficient chips, bringing computing capabilities to use cases that were previously impossible due to the limited energy availability. For example, a smartwatch or health wearable could go weeks between charges and support more sophisticated sensor data analytics, or a remote-sensing satellite could provide high-fidelity data insights using the limited energy of a nanosatellite's small battery.

"Energy consumption impacts nearly everything in modern computing, from where devices are located to the capabilities they offer and the scale of their deployment," said Brandon Lucia, co-founder and CEO of Efficient Computer. "We are removing the energy barrier from computing at the edge, while giving developers the freedom and flexibility to quickly build devices and applications at scale. Efficient hardware and software will significantly reduce energy consumption for computing, creating entirely new categories of use cases."

The Efficient processor architecture features three key benefits that set it apart from other computer chips, including:

Longer lifetime and expanded capabilities: Efficient's Fabric makes computing orders-of-magnitude more efficient, which prolongs battery life and increases the computing capabilities of a device. This drives down operational expenses, enables larger fleet sizes, and reduces environmental impact (e.g., for battery disposal).
Developer friendly and future-proof: As a fully general-purpose programmable processor that supports mainstream, high-level programming languages, Efficient offers versatility across application domains and a seamless developer experience – enabling developers to concentrate on innovation, freeing them from the burden of learning cumbersome new languages and tools often associated with specialized hardware.
Computing at the edge: The Efficient processor avoids expensive off-device communication to the cloud, allowing for more efficient on-device computing solutions and enabling more computing capabilities at the edge. Low energy consumption technology in edge devices also avoids the need for costly and often unavailable communication to the cloud, further improving efficiency and data privacy.

"The technology community's long-held secret of highly inefficient general-purpose processors has slowed innovation and limited applications, particularly at the edge," said Greg Reichow, partner at Eclipse. "More than just closing this gap, the Efficient team is introducing an entirely new category of processor that is enabling organizations to reconsider what is possible. With its unmatched energy efficiency, the software-agnostic processor is capable of powering a variety of smart devices with additional capabilities designed to improve the user experience, data consumption, and overall serves as a catalyst for innovation moving forward."

The Efficient processor saves energy across many domains, including machine learning-enabled extreme-edge machine vision, continuous audio intelligence, and versatile sensory and signals intelligence. It also enables developers to bring their own code, with support for mainstream embedded languages, to build rich intelligence applications that integrate AI/ML, signal processing, data analytics, and other general-purpose data processing computations. To learn more about Efficient's transformative architecture, please visit https://efficient.computer/technology

For those interested in joining Efficient's early adopter program, please reach out to [email protected] for more information.

About Efficient Computer
Efficient has created a transformative computer architecture and software stack that delivers unprecedented levels of energy efficiency. Combining software with hardware, this novel processor technology is up to 100X more energy-efficient than leading general-purpose embedded processors. The Efficient processor is ideal for edge computing devices and applications across industries, including the Internet of Things, wearable and implantable health devices, space systems, and security and defense, where power restrictions have often limited both capabilities and value. Efficient is founded by a renowned team who have a wide range of expertise areas – from professors and PhDs at Carnegie Mellon University, to startup veterans. For more information about the company, please visit https://efficient.computer/.

About Eclipse
With over $4 billion in assets under management and a team of investors with deep operating expertise in technology, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, healthcare, and consumer products, Eclipse is a leading U.S. venture capital firm. Its leadership team has the experience necessary to create and scale complex operations. Eclipse partners with exceptional companies that make physical industries more efficient, resilient, and profitable. For more information, visit www.eclipse.vc.

SOURCE Efficient Computer