Japan’s state-backed chip venture Rapidus Corp. and U.S. chip designing venture Esperanto Technologies Inc. announced Wednesday a collaboration to jointly develop and produce energy-saving chips for artificial intelligence. The tie-up is aimed at meeting the demand of data center operators that are grappling with a surge in energy consumption in the wake of the recent generative AI boom worldwide. A massive amount of electricity used for developing and powering AI is an urgent issue in the industry, with many experts cautioning that its power consumption will become unsustainable if its growth…