One of the best performers on the ASX on Monday was the BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN) share price.
The artificial intelligence company's shares rocketed 25% higher to 6.9 cents at one stage before closing the day 14.5% higher.
Why did the BrainChip share price rocket higher?
Investors were buying the company's shares after it announced the receipt of an EAR99 classification for its Akida Neuromorphic System-on-Chip (NSoC), Akida Software Development Environment (ADE), and related technologies from the U.S. Government.
The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) classification of EAR99, which BrainChip has now formally received, removes the barriers for exporting Akida to non-U.S. countries and to non-restricted customers and use cases.
The EAR99 designation means the company does not require a pre-approval, or a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce, before delivering its solutions globally as part of sales and market expansion activities.
What is Akida?
By mimicking brain processing BrainChip has been able to pioneer a spiking neural network called Akida.
It is both scalable and flexible to address the requirements in edge devices. An edge device is best described as any piece of hardware that controls data flow at the boundary between two networks. This could be a router or a smartphone.
Akida has been designed to provide a complete ultra-low power AI Edge Network for vision, audio and smart transducer applications. The reduction in system latency provides faster response and a more power efficient system that can reduce the large carbon footprint data centres.
A "major achievement."
BrainChip's CEO, Louis DiNardo, believes this is a big positive for the company.
He said: "This is a major achievement for BrainChip and another distinction over our competition that have not achieved this classification. An EAR99 classification from the U.S. Government will further fuel our commercial momentum with target customers, particularly across Asia."
"Market interest in our unique AI technology continues to grow due to the exponential increase of AI uses at the edge. Combined with our strong differentiation in ultra-low power consumption and performance over other solutions, we are well positioned to address the requirements of a customers in high-growth markets internationally," he concluded.
Other small caps rising strongly on Monday include Compumedics Limited (ASX: CMP) and Money3 Corporation Limited (ASX: MNY). They rose 26% and 7%, respectively, following the release of positive updates. You can read more here and here.
