AI Inference: Why Speed Matters More Than You Think (with SambaNova's Kwasi Ankomah)

The Neuron: AI Explained

Everyone's talking about the AI datacenter boom right now. Billion dollar deals here, hundred billion dollar deals there. Well, why do data centers matter? It turns out, AI inference (actually calling the AI and running it) is the hidden bottleneck slowing down every AI application you use (and new stuff yet to be released).

In this episode, Kwasi Ankomah from SambaNova Systems explains why running AI models efficiently matters more than you think, how their revolutionary chip architecture delivers 700+ tokens per second, and why AI agents are about to make this problem 10x worse.

💡 This episode is sponsored by Gladia's Solaria - the speech-to-text API built for real-world voice AI. With sub-270ms latency, 100+ languages supported, and 94% accuracy even in noisy environments, it's the backbone powering voice agents that actually work. Learn more at gladia.io/solaria

🔗 Key Links:

• SambaNova Cloud: https://cloud.sambanova.ai

• Check out Solaria speech to text API: https://www.gladia.io/solaria

• Subscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.ai

🎯 What You'll Learn:

• Why inference speed matters more than model size

• How SambaNova runs massive models on 90% less power

• Why AI agents use 10-20x more tokens

• The best open source models right now

• What to watch for in AI infrastructure

➤ CHAPTERS

Timecode - Chapter Title

0:00 - Intro

2:14 - What is AI Inference?

3:19 - Why Inference is the Real Challenge

9:18 - A message from our sponsor, Gladia Solaria

10:16 - The 95% ROI Problem Discussion

13:47 - SambaNova's Revolutionary Chip Architecture

15:19 - Running DeepSeek's 670B Parameter Models

18:11 - Developer Experience & Platform

21:26 - AI Agents and the Token Explosion

24:33 - Model Swapping and Cost Optimization

31:30 - Energy Efficiency 10kW vs 100kW

36:13 - Future of AI Models Bigger vs Smaller

39:24 - Best Open Source Models Right Now

46:01 - AI Infrastructure Next 12 Months

47:09 - Agents as Infrastructure

50:28 - Human-in-the-Loop and Trust

52:55 - Closing and Resources

Article Written by: Grant Harvey

Hosted by: Corey Noles and Grant Harvey

Guest: Kwasi Ankomah

Published by: Manique Santos

Edited by: Adrian Vallinan