The founder of a billion-dollar artificial intelligence company in Bristol has been named the 海角视频’s entrepreneur of the year.
Nigel Toon, co-founder and chief executive of Graphcore, scooped Icon of the Year at the Barclays Entrepreneurs Awards.
The accolade recognises the person who has best demonstrated the successful scaling of businesses, leadership through significant growth and investment raising, and the offering of support and mentorship to other entrepreneurs.
Nigel said: “It’s great to receive this award but what really needs recognising is the huge team effort that is going on at Graphcore to exploit what is a massive market opportunity ahead of us.
“What we’re doing at Graphcore is potentially changing the future of computing - this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity.
“If we get this right, the IPU will define the future of machine intelligence, powering world-changing innovations for decades to come.”
Graphcore was co-founded by Nigel and Simon Knowles in 2016, and has raised over $300million of investment to date.
The company has developed one of the most advanced intelligence processing units in the world. The technology is now used in machine learning globally to help power driverless cars and robots.
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Matt Brook, Barclays high growth and entrepreneur director in the South West, added: “Nigel was a unanimous winner among the judges for all of his and Graphcore’s achievements in the last 12 months.
“He is a true icon and role model for other founders and entrepreneurs, both in Bristol and the South West but also for the 海角视频 deep tech sector as a whole.”
Nigel previously led two VC-backed Silicon Valley companies before founding Graphcore: Picochip, which was sold to Mindspeed in 2012, and XMOS, in which Graphcore was incubated.
Prior to that Nigel was co-founder of Icera, a 3G cellular modem chip company, which was sold to NVIDIA in 2011.
The national Barclays Entrepreneur Awards Dinner was held at Bloomsbury Ballroom in central London, and was hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald.
The event was attended by the other winning entrepreneurs, industry experts and investors from across the 海角视频.
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