CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Rodrigo Liang

Co-founder & CEO, Sambanova

Search every verified Rodrigo Liang interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of SambaNova, has recently discussed the company's focus on AI inference as the economic center of the AI industry. In interviews with Bloomberg, CNBC, and theCUBE, he stated that SambaNova's technology can reduce the cost of inference by tenfold by deploying into existing "brownfield" data centers with current power and cooling infrastructure. He cited a six-month payback period for infrastructure investments, compared to 12–24 months for other approaches, and emphasized metrics such as cost per token served and revenue per gigawatt. Liang also mentioned a partnership with Vistra on the "Neo Cloud" project, which reuses existing data centers. Liang confirmed that SambaNova closed a $1 billion funding round and noted the company has seen six consecutive quarters of quarter-over-quarter doubling. He said the company is considering a public offering "if it makes sense for the company" and the market. He also discussed strategic corporate investors in the company's Series F round, including large tech firms, and described a future of heterogeneous computing environments where chips from multiple vendors, including NVIDIA and AMD, are mixed. Liang noted that some customers, such as JPMorgan, are running AI infrastructure behind their own firewalls to protect customer data.

Recent appearances

  • SambaNova CEO: AI’s Next Phase Is About Efficiency

    October 13, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Tech

    SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang says the AI infrastructure boom is entering a new phase focused increasingly on inference, efficiency and return on investment. As the company closes its Series F with new strategic investors, Liang discusses why enterprises including JPMorgan are running AI infrastructure behind their own firewalls and why frontier models and private AI systems can coexist. He joins Bloomberg's Dani Burger from the CAIS Summit in Beverly Hills, live on "Bloomberg Tech." -------- Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Tech on YouTube:    / @bloombergtech     Watch the latest full…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Chip Selloff Spreads Globally, Apple Makes Smart Home Push

    October 13, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Tech

    Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down the accelerating chip selloff as pressure spreads from Asia to the US. Plus, Apple releases a new line of smart home devices including its HomeView Hub, the centerpiece of its push to challenge Amazon and Google in that space. And, Meta releases a new AI model which it says has "frontier capabilities" as it vies to take on OpenAI and Anthropic. 00:00:00 - Bloomberg Tech Begins 00:01:08 - Peter Elstrom, Bloomberg News 00:03:53 - Kristina Hooper, Man Group 00:09:15 - Mark Gurman, Bloomberg News 00:12:41 - Riley Griffin, Bloomberg News 00:17:12 - Nandan Nilekani…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang Talks AI Inference | SambaNova x CNBC

    September 15, 2026 · 📺 SambaNova

    Rodrigo Liang, SambaNova’s co-founder and CEO and a semiconductor engineer for 30 years, appears on @cnbc’s “Squawk on the Street” on September 14, 2026. During the discussion, he reflects on SambaNova’s entry into the AI inference chip race, leveraging existing data centers to reduce buildouts and the six month speed to payback. He also offers perspective on safety concerns and how SambaNova’s customers are repatriating infrastructure to keep customer data and information safe. Liang sheds light on making infrastructure cheaper, more cost-effective, and sustainable, while also exploring the…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Rodrigo Liang, SambaNova | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories

    September 14, 2026 · 📺 SiliconANGLE theCUBE

    In this interview from theCUBE + NYSE Wired: AI Factories, Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and chief executive officer of SambaNova, joins theCUBE's John Furrier to discuss why inference has become the economic center of AI. Liang explains how the industry is shifting from pure infrastructure buildout to demonstrating sustainable financial payback, balancing energy consumption with revenue generation. He details SambaNova's focus on maximizing token output per rack at the lowest cost and power, and outlines how a partnership with NVIDIA using disaggregated inference can triple throughput on existing…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • SambaNova CEO on going public next year: If it makes sense for the company, we are thinking about it

    September 14, 2026 · 📺 CNBC Television

    Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO at SambaNova, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss how his company is challenging Nvidia, the company's $11 billion valuation after a financing round by General Atomics, AI fears and safety, and more. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/42d859g » Subscribe to CNBC TV: https://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBCtelevision » Subscribe to CNBC: https://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBC » Watch CNBC on the go with CNBC+: https://www.cnbc.com/WatchCNBCPlus Turn to CNBC TV for the latest stock market news and analysis. From market futures…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Fast by Design: The Infrastructure Powering the Agentic Era | Rodrigo Liang | RAISE Summit 2026

    July 22, 2026 · 📺 RAISE Summit

    Rodrigo Liang, Co-Founder & CEO of SambaNova Systems, and Monti Saroya, Senior Managing Director at Vista Equity, join Dylan Patel (SemiAnalysis) on purpose-built infrastructure for the agentic era — and why enterprise AI needs its own silicon. Recorded live on the Master Stage at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, on July 8, 2026. Livestream powered by Cursor. RAISE Summit is Europe's leading AI gathering, bringing together 9,000+ founders, executives, investors, researchers and policymakers. Learn more: https://www.raisesummit.com Subscribe for every session from RAISE Summit 2026.

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • AMD, Starcloud, Coatue..10 Hot Takes From The Biggest Names in AI

    July 18, 2026 · 📺 Sourcery with Molly O'Shea

    Day 1 of RAISE Summit in Paris, the most high-profile AI summit in Europe. We pulled 10 of the sharpest founders, operators, and investors aside for their hottest takes on the debates defining AI right now. Open source vs closed models dominated the room, alongside agents rewriting how work gets done, the death of the keyboard and mouse, the economics of inference, and physical AI moving from data centers into cars, devices, and even orbit. Real numbers, real disagreements, and a few pieces of breaking news, straight from the people building it. "The keyboard and mouse are slowly dying." - M…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Inference 101: SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang

    July 17, 2026 · 📺 Sourcery with Molly O'Shea

    Rodrigo Liang is the CEO and Co-Founder of SambaNova. The company just announced a first close on a $1B round at an $11B valuation, led by General Atlantic with T. Rowe Price and Capital Group participating. Rodrigo has spent 32 years building chips. We covered the 101 of semiconductors and data centers: what inference is, why it is a different problem than training, and why inference will require orders of magnitude more chips than training. He walks through SambaNova's chip lineup from SN10 to the new SN50, why a 10 kilowatt air-cooled rack changes where AI can be deployed, and why running…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Ben Thompson Joins, 5.6 Sol Reactions, Coatue Bets Big on Blue Origin at $130B

    July 08, 2026 · 📺 TBPN

    00:05:14 Coatue Bets Big on Blue Origin 00:10:12 Cheaper Vision Pro Dead 00:18:37 Getty x Shutterstock Deal Dies 00:25:50 Empty IBM Campus Goes Viral 00:33:25 𝕏 Timeline Reactions 00:37:17 OpenAI Launches GPT-Live 00:40:54 GPT-5.6 Goes Public This Week 00:45:49 Vincent Weisser, co-founder and CEO of Prime Intellect, announced the company's $130 million Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation, aimed at building an open superintelligence stack. He discussed how Prime Intellect provides a comprehensive platform for training, deploying, and continuously improving AI models, enabling enterprises…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Incredible Demand for Inferencing at High Speeds: SambaNova CEO

    July 08, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Tech

    Chip startup SambaNova raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation, underscoring investors’ conviction in rising demand for infrastructure tied to AI. SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang joins Ed Ludlow on "Bloomberg Tech." -------- Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube:    / @bloombergtech     Watch the latest full episodes of "Bloomberg Technology" with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow here:    • 'Bloomberg Tech' With Ed Ludlow Full Episodes     Get the latest in tech from Silicon Valley and around the world here: https://www.bloomberg.com/technology Connect with us on…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Rodrigo Liang, SambaNova Systems | RAISE Summit 2026

    July 08, 2026 · 📺 SiliconANGLE theCUBE

    In this interview from RAISE Summit 2026 in Paris, Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and chief executive officer of SambaNova Systems, joins theCUBE + NYSE Wired's Gemma Allen to discuss how inference economics and sovereign AI deployment are reshaping enterprise infrastructure strategy. Liang details SambaNova's newly closed $1 billion funding round at an $11 billion valuation, led by General Atlantic with participation from Columbia Seligman, T. Rowe Price and Capital Group. He explains how disaggregated inference — pairing SambaNova racks with NVIDIA GPUs — delivers faster performance on the trilli…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • The Future of AI Isn't Training. It's Inference | SambaNova x Forbes

    June 11, 2026 · 📺 SambaNova

    The AI industry is entering a new phase. As AI adoption accelerates, the challenge is no longer just training models—it's running them efficiently, reliably, and fast enough to power the next generation of agentic applications. When Forbes visited SambaNova's headquarters in San Jose, the conversation quickly became about more than chips. It became a discussion about the future of AI infrastructure, the growing demand for inference, and why speed, efficiency, and power consumption may determine the next winners in artificial intelligence. In this feature, hear from: • Rodrigo Liang, CEO &…

    Watch on YouTube ↗

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →