AI chip startup SambaNova has been valued at $11 billion after raising $1 billion in new financing, underscoring continued investor interest in companies building alternatives to Nvidia in the artificial intelligence hardware market.
The round was led by General Atlantic and included participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price and Capital Group, according to the report. The company had already raised more than $350 million earlier this year, with Intel among the investors, and also announced a partnership with the chipmaker.
Focus on inference and enterprise deployments
SambaNova is centered on inference chips, which are designed to run large AI models efficiently and quickly. Its latest chip, the SN50, is sold as part of a server system intended for data center use. The company also emphasizes on-premise deployments, where its systems are installed inside a customer’s own data center rather than in a third-party cloud environment.
CEO Rodrigo Liang said at the Raise AI summit in Paris that the company is growing rapidly and that the new capital will help speed up customer deployments. He also said SambaNova is strongly considering an IPO in 2027, most likely in the U.S. JPMorgan Chase said on Wednesday that it will use SambaNova systems for on-prem inference in enterprise AI workloads.
Source: cnbc.com
