Las Vegas tech CEO lands on Forbes 30 Under 30

A Las Vegas tech CEO made it onto the Forbes 30 Under 30.

Founder and CEO of TensorWave, Darrick Horton, 28, found his way onto the Forbes 30 Under 30 for artificial intelligence. He landed a spot for doing what Forbes described as a “seemingly impossible mission”: breaking Nvidia’s dominance in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

TensorWave is an AI GPU cloud computing company that uses AMD GPUs, as opposed to the industry dominant Nvidia GPUs.

“It’s great recognition at the end of the day, it’s representative of the pace that we’re growing at,” said Horton. “But we still got to do the work.”

Since the Review-Journal last spoke with TensorWave’s President and COO Piotr Tomasik in May, the company has tripled its overall headcount, with 100 total employees, 50 of which are in Las Vegas and moved to a new, expanded office space in Town Square.

Launched in 2012, the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list recognizes leaders and founders of 20 different industries who are “shaping the future,” according to the publication.

What is AI GPU cloud computing?

A GPU, or graphic processing unit, is a small chip used in computers that can perform thousands of tasks simultaneously and process large amounts of data. It helps create pictures, 3D images and perform video playback on computers, among other things, and are essential for training AI models.

However, just one GPU can cost thousands of dollars and require large clunky equipment; and the bigger the company the more GPUs are needed.

What TensorWave does is allow for companies to utilize their thousands of GPUs for large processing. Their main focus is to help AI companies and startups train and use their AI models, while cutting down on time and equipment, while clients can pay as they go depending on how often and how much they use.

Through the use of AMD’s GPUs, TensorWave aims to break the monopoly Nvidia currently has on the GPU and chipmaking industry as a whole.

Growth goals

Since being founded in 2023, the company has increased its overall capacity tenfold each year. Horton wants to do it again, and again.

“It’s hard to 10x once. It’s even harder to do 10x three or four or five times in a row,” said Horton. “So, we have a long and hard journey ahead of us, but we have set the right foundation.”

Next year, Horton plans to increase their GPUs tenfold, having 100,000 deployed by next year. From there, the goals continue to get more ambitious, with hopes to be the first company to deploy 1 million GPUs, which Horton said no one has ever done.

In the rapidly evolving AI industry, Horton said benchmarks quickly become obsolete. Horton said the company has to “throw out everything that you knew and start again” a couple times a year.

“Every single year now, the hardware itself and the design fundamentally changes,” said Horton. “For this past year, we had a really great design for how we do deployments and data centers and racks and the servers and everything. Next year it’s completely different. It’s bigger.”

With constantly having to scale, Horton believes Vegas is positioned to support the growth of the company, saying it attracts talent, has enough local businesses to support growth and isn’t “crazy big.”

“I think we’re like the biggest tech company here,” guessed Horton. “That would never be the case in the Bay (Area).”

The company has a relationship with the state, according to Horton, receiving $210,000 in abatements from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development in May. It is expected to make a $1 million capital equipment investment within two years and generate $26 million in new taxes over the 10 years, according to GOED.

TensorWave has also broken multiple Nevada records for funding.

It raised the largest startup funding in Nevada history in October, landing $43 million in seed funding. The funding was led by Nexus VP, with participation from Maverick Capital, Translink Capital, Javelin Venture Partners, Granite Partners and AMD Ventures.

Additionally, TensorWave broke a record for the largest Series A funding secured in Nevada history, raising $100 million, led by Magnetar and AMD Ventures, with support from Maverick Silicon, Nexus Venture Partners, and new investor Prosperity7.

With the accolades stacking up, Horton said the recognition is “great validation,” but “customers don’t sign because he’s in Forbes.

“Customers sign because you have the best experience, with the best product,” said Horton. “And that’s what we really want to be known for, is the customer experience that we bring.”