The Compute 100: Barun Kar, CEO, and Rajiv Khemani, Executive Chairman at Upscale AI

Today’s guests are Barun Kar, CEO, and Rajiv Khemani, Executive Chairman at Upscale AI. Barun and Rajiv are multi-time founders in networking silicon. Between them they helped build Cavium, Innovium, Palo Alto Networks and Juniper’s MX series before co-founding Auradine, where they incubated Upscale AI before spinning it out. Upscale builds the switch silicon, systems and software that connect AI chips to each other using open standards. We dig into why AI clusters need a network built around memory reads and writes between chips, not the packet switching that cloud networks were designed for, and why Barun and Rajiv chose open standards over a proprietary fabric like NVLink. They explain how a networking startup works with hyperscalers on their custom chips, why it sells complete systems to new clouds and enterprises, and how the AI buildout could make networking a trillion dollar market. From switch silicon to supply chains, we discuss: - How scale-up and scale-out networks work - Where copper, optics and optical switches fit - Why open standards matter for AI chips - What a network operating system does - How Upscale secures its supply chain - Building culture while scaling to 300 people Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 1:05 Why AI needs a new network 5:21 Why cloud-era chips fall short for AI 9:05 Scale-up and scale-out inside an AI rack 14:47 The Auradine spin-out and Upscale’s founding story 19:30 Memory semantics versus packet switching 26:14 From Cavium and Palo Alto Networks to Upscale 30:50 Competition and the system-level advantage 34:19 What a network operating system does 35:24 Optics and optical switching 40:33 Selling to hyperscalers, new clouds and enterprises 46:04 How big AI networking could get 49:04 Securing supply across the chain 53:31 Building at the forefront of AI 56:17 Beyond networking: what comes next 1:02:23 Building culture in a fast-growing company The Compute 100 is led by Brian Schechter and Gaby Lorenzi, compute-focused investors at Primary. Primary is a pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm that backs founders building across markets including compute, industrials, healthcare and vertical AI. With $1.6B AUM and a 60+ person operating team, Primary delivers unparalleled support to teams across recruiting, finance, GTM, and brand. Primary’s compute portfolio includes Etched, The Biological Computing Company, Haiqu, and Atero (acquired by Crusoe). Follow us on X and check out our daily newsletter. *This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Nothing discussed in this podcast constitutes investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, or a recommendation to make any investment. Any views expressed are as of the date of recording, are subject to change, and may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.*