Blaize CEO Dinakar Munagala awarded honor in 2024 Sacramento Inno Awards
EL DORADO HILLS – The Sacramento Inno Awards has recognized an El Dorado Hills CEO with one of its highest honors. Blaize CEO Dinakar Munagala has been named Innovator of the Year.
The Sacramento Inno Awards, organized by the Sacramento Business Journal, celebrate innovation in the Sacramento region and the remarkable individuals and organizations behind these initiatives. In addition to receiving the Innovator of the Year award, Blaize was honored as the No. 1 Most Funded Company after securing $106 million in funding earlier this year.
At the 2024 Sacramento Inno Awards ceremony on Nov. 14, an expert panel discussed the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and innovation in the Sacramento region. The panel featured Dinakar Munagala, CEO of Blaize; Shweta Gandhi, CEO of Strived; and Brian Raymond, CEO of Unstructured.
“The Sacramento region has a wealth of individuals and organizations at the forefront of driving innovation and moving our economy forward,” said Munagala. “It is an honor to receive this recognition alongside other incredible individuals and companies. I look forward to future discussions about the important role of the Sacramento region in the AI and innovation economy, as well as how the region will benefit from breakthroughs in this new AI technology.”
Munagala, co-founder and CEO of Blaize, brings more than 22 years of experience successfully leading global teams building graphics chips. He has been recognized for technical excellence, new initiatives, and a results-focused approach.
Munagala launched Blaize with a bootstrapped effort to create a more energy-efficient processor architecture for emerging computing needs. Under his guidance, Blaize has developed a transformative compute solution that integrates silicon and software to optimize AI at scale across various environments. The company has attracted prominent investors, expanded its customer base in automotive and other industries, and established a global presence with offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, India, and the United Arab Emirates.
Before founding Blaize, Munagala spent 12 years at Intel, holding key positions in graphics processor microarchitecture, design, and feature ownership within the mobile and graphics engineering group, as well as the Intel Centrino platforms. His contributions included developing Intel’s next-generation multi-core, multi-threaded graphics chips and architecting the company’s first integrated CPU/GPU product family.
Munagala holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical and computer engineering from Osmania University in India and a Master of Science degree in the same field from Purdue University in the United States. He is listed as an inventor on five patents.
Dedicated to community service, Munagala has spent a decade leading fundraising efforts for CRY (Child Rights and You)/Vibha (Sacramento Action Center), a nonprofit organization supporting underprivileged children’s education. He is also a committed supporter of Kiva and Vittana initiatives, which empower students and entrepreneurs through microfinance loans.
Blaize provides a full-stack programmable processor architecture suite and a low-code/no-code software platform that enables AI processing solutions for high-performance computing at the network’s edge and in data centers. Blaize solutions deliver real-time insights and decision-making capabilities with low power consumption, high efficiency, minimal size, and low cost. Blaize has raised more than $330 million from strategic investors such as DENSO, Mercedes-Benz AG, Magna, and Samsung and financial investors such as Franklin Templeton, Temasek, GGV, Bess Ventures, BurTech LP LLC, Rizvi Traverse, and Ava Investors. Headquartered in El Dorado Hills, Blaize has more than 200 employees worldwide, with teams in San Jose, California; Cary, North Carolina; and subsidiaries in Hyderabad, India; Leeds and Kings Langley, United Kingdom; and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The 2024 Sacramento Inno Awards program recognizes the area’s vibrant innovation community—from startups to established companies—and their breakthrough creations. The program is organized by the Sacramento Business Journal.
