Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Wednesday it will pay about US$2.9-billion for Toronto-based semiconductor startup Taalas Inc., one of the largest takeovers of a Canadian technology company. Santa Clara, Calif.-based AMD announced the deal in August and disclosed the price of the cash-and-stock acquisition in a securities filing Wednesday, saying US$1.4-billion of the purchase amount is dependent on unspecified conditions. The deal has yet to close and is subject to regulatory approval and other conditions. Taalas, founded in August 2023 by former long-time AMD executives Ljubisa Bajic, Lejla Bajic and Drago Ignjatovic, designs AI inference chips tailored to specific large language models rather than general-purpose processors; its first chip was tailored to Meta Platforms Inc.’s Llama family of LLMs. AMD plans to integrate Taalas’s technology into future chips for AI inference as it works to compete with Nvidia. Taalas had raised over US$225-million in venture financing, including a US$169-million funding round in February that included Fidelity Management & Research Co. and San Francisco-based Quiet Capital. AMD’s Taalas takeover tops the US$2.75-billion that Nasdaq Inc. paid in November 2020 for Verafin Inc.