Silicon Valley (USA)-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup d-Matrix has raised $110 million from investors, including Microsoft, at a time when many chip companies are having difficulty raising capital.
According to Reuters, Nvidia’s dominant position in the AI chip market thanks to its strong combination of hardware and software has made potential investors in some startups worried.
The Series B funding round was led by Singapore-based Temasek, including joint venture company Playground Global in Palo Alto, California (USA) and Microsoft.
d-Matrix CEO Sid Sheth said the company began the fundraising process about a year ago. Previously the company raised $44 million.
The company d-Matrix designs chips that are optimized to power AI applications like ChatGPT. The company designs digital chips that allow AI computer code to run more efficiently. Their chip technology uses less power to process the data needed to generate generalized AI responses and is optimized for such tasks.
Sheth said that Microsoft has committed to evaluating the AI chip for use when it launches next year. d-Matrix predicts it will achieve revenue of about $10 million this year – most of it coming from customers buying chips to evaluate quality.