Tenstorrent, led by Jim Keller, has made an unexpected change to its Blackhole P150 AI accelerator. The company is now shipping the P150 with 120 "Tensix" cores instead of the originally advertised 140. While the exact reason remains unclear, the move has sparked discussion within the high-performance computing community, raising questions about product performance and strategy.

This core reduction, roughly a 14% decrease, also impacts the card's performance metrics. The BLOCKFP8 8-bit floating-point performance has dropped from 774 TeraFLOPS to 664 TeraFLOPS. Some experts speculate that thermal limitations or improving silicon yield could be factors behind the change. The move could also signal that the initial silicon wasn't fully ready.

Tenstorrent's Blackhole P150 accelerators are designed for desktop workstations and feature 32 GB of GDDR6 memory. The change in core count raises questions about the product's long-term viability. This decision may impact how it stacks up against other AI accelerators in the market.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how this core reduction affects the overall performance and market positioning of the Blackhole P150. Also, consumers and industry professionals will want to follow how this change impacts future updates and the overall performance of the product.