Texas Instruments CTO on the Chip Race Behind AI and Robotics

AI may feel like a software revolution, but none of it works without the hardware beneath it.

In this episode of Automated, Brian Heater speaks with Texas Instruments CTO Dr. Ahmad Bahai about the semiconductor innovations powering AI, data centers, autonomous systems, and robotics.

Ahmad explains why delivering power to advanced processors is becoming a major bottleneck, why future robots will need local edge intelligence, and why more efficient algorithms may define the next phase of AI.

The conversation also traces his career from early Wi-Fi research at Bell Labs to Kilby Labs and Texas Instruments. Brian and Ahmad discuss the semiconductor supply chain, the technologies that must converge before robots can reach the mainstream, and why companies must invest in foundational research before the next market arrives.

They also examine how engineers repeatedly find ways around supposed physical limits. A prominent physicist once argued that chips could not scale below 55 nanometers. Today, the industry has reached two nanometers.

KEY MOMENTS
00:00 Why engineers keep breaking supposed physical limits
01:23 Welcome to Automated
02:14 What Bell Labs was like in the 1990s
04:09 Working on the foundations of Wi-Fi
05:34 Bridging academic research and industry
06:57 Bringing the Bell Labs philosophy to Kilby Labs
08:19 Why companies cannot recreate the original Bell Labs
10:29 Funding research decades before it may pay off
11:06 Staying adaptable as competing technologies emerge
12:24 Ahmad’s path from Bell Labs to a startup
13:44 National Semiconductor, Intel, and Texas Instruments
16:21 Why semiconductors fuel nearly every modern innovation
19:22 The “golden screw” and the $1 trillion chip market
21:23 How the pandemic changed TI’s manufacturing strategy
22:47 How AI entered the mainstream
23:55 Preparing for markets no one can predict
26:23 The power problem facing AI data centers
31:37 Why more efficient AI algorithms may define the next decade
33:31 Applying foundational technologies across different markets
35:50 Why major technology shifts take longer than expected
39:46 How engineers work around apparent limits in physics
42:21 How generative AI is pushing chips, memory, and power systems
43:50 Investing in technology before the market arrives
47:22 What robots need to work safely alongside people

Learn more about Dr. Ahmad Bahai and semiconductor innovation at Texas Instruments:
https://www.ti.com/video/6372229233112

Learn more about Texas Instruments:
https://www.ti.com/about-ti.html

Read TI’s insights on scaling humanoid robots:
https://www.ti.com/about-ti/behind-chip/articles/what-will-it-take-to-bring-humanoid-robots-into-the-real-world-read-our-experts-insights.html

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Reach us at podcast@automate.org

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