AlphaChip creators on TIME100 AI: RL chip design dismissed as impossible now ships in TPUs
annadgoldie · x · 2026-08-28
Anna Goldie, co-creator of AlphaChip, was named to TIME's TIME100 AI list. She recalls that when they began AlphaChip in 2017, many said AI methods could never work in chip design, and that RL was widely seen as useless outside games and toy problems — a skepticism reflected in Alex Irpan's famous post "Deep Reinforcement Doesn't Work Yet."
She and co-founder Azalia Mirhoseini started the field of AI for Chip Design, and last year founded Ricursive to take on all of chip design from model to GDS, the final input to the fab.
Related event: TIME Unveils 2026 TIME100 AI List of Most Influential People(45 posts)→
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