The BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN) share price was an exceptionally strong performer on Thursday.
The artificial intelligence company's shares were up as much as 57% to 51 cents at one stage.
While the BrainChip share price ultimately gave back a good portion of these gains, it still ended the day a very impressive 29% higher at 42 cents.
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Why did the BrainChip share price rocket higher?
Investors were fighting to get hold of the company's shares following the release of two positive announcements.
The first announcement revealed that BrainChip has received an order for its Akida Early Access Evaluation Kit from NASA.
According to the release, NASA will use the Akida Early Access Evaluation Kit within its shared service centre at the NASA/Ames research centre (ARC) in California.
Management notes that the kit will allow the space agency to evaluate the Akida technology for use in programs with a neuromorphic processor that meets spaceflight requirements.
It feels the processor is well suited for spaceflight and aerospace applications. This is because the device is a complete neural processor and does not require an external CPU, memory, or Deep Learning Accelerator.
This is a big positive as reducing component count, size, and power consumption is a paramount concern in spaceflight and aerospace applications.
Though, it is worth noting that there's no guarantee that NASA will take things further once it has evaluated the technology.
What else did BrainChip announce?
In a separate announcement BrainChip revealed that it has signed an intellectual property license agreement with Renesas Electronics America.
Renesas Electronics America is a subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corp, which is a global semiconductor manufacturer that specialises in microcontroller and automotive system-on-chip (SoC) products.
The agreement will see BrainChip deliver its Akida technology for use as a SoC licensed product and includes a single-use design license, implementation support services, royalty payments per unit, and software maintenance services for two years.
As with space travel, management believes the technology is well suited for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous vehicles, drones, vision-guided robotics, surveillance, and machine vision systems.
Overall, two promising developments, but time will tell whether they lead to material revenue generation in the future.
