OTTAWA — Marvell Technology, a Silicon Valley firm that makes data-centre hardware, plans to more than double its Canadian workforce, The Logic has learned.

The company’s technology is used by major cloud-service providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and by telecom equipment firms like Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung. Marvell reported US$5.5 billion in revenue for its fiscal year through early February, and has over 6,500 employees. 

Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., the firm first established a Canadian presence in September 2019. Marvell now has about 270 employees in Ontario and British Columbia, according to country manager Nizar Rida. He said the firm plans to grow its Canadian workforce to as many as 650 people over the next five years. 

The AI boom is driving demand for hardware to train and run machine-learning systems. Nvidia currently dominates the market, but rival semiconductor giants and startups have launched new products to compete. Tech giants like Google and Meta have also developed their own hardware. 

“All these big companies now want to spend billions of dollars building data centres,” said Rida. 

Marvell doesn’t sell AI chips itself. Instead, companies like Nvidia use its products to connect and add features to their semiconductors. Marvell also develops chips for large software companies that use them to run search algorithms, social applications and other software products. 

“They need to build hardware for their own cost and power and whatnot,” said Rida, who’s also vice-president of engineering for the compute-storage division. “Marvell comes in here because we have the domain experience.” 

The firm’s Canadian offices are “major R&D centers,” he said. Marvell employees in Ottawa build copper and fibre-optic links to connect chips together. They have also helped develop parts that add networking and security capabilities to other firms’ AI processors. Teams in Toronto create circuits that help speed up the movement of data between semiconductors.

Some of Marvell’s Canadian staff also work on parts that firms like Cisco and Juniper Networks use in office-network equipment like Wi-Fi routers and switches, as well as on automotive products that transmit data from cameras and sensors within vehicles. 

Marvell is expanding in Canada because of the country’s deep pool of hardware expertise, and because employees based here can easily work with U.S. customers, said Nigel Alvares, the firm’s vice-president of global marketing.

The company recently opened a new design centre in Toronto, adding to an existing location north of the city in Richmond Hill. Marvell also has two offices in Ottawa. To meet its hiring target, the firm plans to recruit new graduates from local universities and to bring in workers from abroad. Marvell is seeking funding from the federal and provincial governments to help pay for its expansion plans, Rida said.

It’s not the only AI hardware company staffing up in Canada right now. Silicon Valley chipmaker Cerebras plans to double its Toronto workforce to 200 over the next two years. Homegrown firms like Taalas, Tenstorrent and Untether AI are also growing. Marvell faces a competitive market for hiring skilled chip workers, Alvares acknowledged.

The tight labour market reflects the key role chips play in AI, Rida said. “Hardware is coming back in fashion.”