GSI Technology Inc. has been awarded a $ 1.1 million contract to develop an artificial-intelligence chip for the U.S. Department of the Air Force, the company announced Wednesday.
The chip will be used by the Air Force for in-aircraft search and rescue, object detection, moving-target indication and change detection, GSI GSIT, -4.14% said. The technology also harnesses SSIM (structural similarity index measure) as a “photo hunt” to find local landmarks that a drone or airplane is flying close to in order to determine general location, the company told MarketWatch. As part of the deal, GSI will create algorithms for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory using the company’s Gemini Associative Processing Unit, which is aimed at the AI market.
Shares of GSI ended Wednesday’s session down 4.1%, outpacing the S&P 500 index’s SPX decline of 0.8%.
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The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company sparked meme-like buzz last year, attracting attention from users posting on Reddit.
Founded in 1995, GSI Technology designs and develops memory products for the telecommunications and networking industries. The company describes itself as a leading provider of static random-access memory, or SRAM, semiconductor products. But it’s GSI Technology’s efforts around AI-processor technology that have been grabbing attention.
While companies such as Nvidia Corp. NVDA, -1.24%, Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR, -2.96% and Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -0.07% have cemented themselves as AI players in the eyes of Wall Street, investors have also been watching lesser-known AI-related companies such as GSI.
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Against this backdrop, GSI Technology’s stock has risen 44.9% in the last 12 months, outpacing the S&P 500’s gain of 22.1% in that time.