(Bloomberg) – a former Goldman Sachs Inc.
Srujan Linga takes over as CEO of Lausanne, Switzerland-based Lausanne. Founder and current CEO Amin Shokrollahi will become Chief Technology Officer. Founded in 2011, the company plans to produce semiconductors for AI cloud services and hardware providers in the United States.
“The age of AI is here,” Linga said. “But the cost of AI systems needs to drop dramatically to make it ubiquitous.”
In 2023, President Joe Biden’s administration attracted Linga to leave Goldman to build chips for the United States, a quasi-investment company designed to boost production of U.S. semiconductors. Linga, 41, is a core member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s government AI task force and reported to then-Corporate Secretary Gina Raimondo, leaving the chip program in January.
Semiconductors provide AI’s hardware bedrock, which is costly, and U.S. companies are under pressure to lower prices due to the latest threat from Chinese AI company DeepSeek. Linga said that bottlenecks in the AI memory industry are barriers to entry, and his company plans to lower prices by leveraging energy-saving chips.
The Chips and Science Act signed Biden in 2022, a $52 billion bid to revitalize the U.S. semiconductor industry. President Donald Trump complained that the plan was a waste of taxpayers’ money and begged Republican lawmakers to repeal the legislation, believing that tariffs work better than subsidies that encourage U.S. investment.
Linga said he wasn’t too concerned about how the Trump administration plans to bring supply chains to the United States, and more endpoints.
“What’s most effective in inspiring companies to build more companies in the U.S., whether it’s grants or tariffs,” he said. “Entering U.S. manufacturing and enabling companies to build emerging technologies is crucial for national security purposes. It’s a priority. I’m not worried about what tariffs do.”
Instead of returning to banking, Linga took advantage of a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as his experience with Goldman’s global structured credit financing group to lead the U.S. launch of Kandou Kandou Ai.
– Assistance from Sridhar Natarajan.
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