Rivos Seeks $500M Funding to Challenge Nvidia in AI Chip Market.

Rivos, a semiconductor startup focused on AI, is seeking up to $500M in funding to compete with Nvidia. The company, backed by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, aims to design GPUs and challenge Nvidia's dominance in the market. The funding round would bring Rivos' total funding to date to $500M.

Rivos, a semiconductor startup focused on artificial intelligence (AI), is seeking up to $500 million in funding to design graphics processing units (GPUs) and compete with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), the market leader in AI GPUs. The funding round, if successful, would bring Rivos' total funding to nearly $900 million since its inception in 2021, giving it a valuation of over $2 billion [1].

Rivos is backed by Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who is a significant investor and the founding chairman of the company. The startup aims to design GPUs for inference, a critical component in AI that runs already trained models. Rivos expects inference to account for 60% to 70% of all AI workloads by 2030. The company is attempting to build "power-efficient, high-performance, secure server solutions based on RISC-V," a free and open-source instruction set architecture [1].

Rivos has already completed a $250 million fundraising round last year and delivered a prototype to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) for trial production. The company hopes to mass produce its chips by 2026 and capture a portion of Nvidia's market share [1]. Rivos' co-founder and CEO, Puneet Kumar, previously worked for a chip design firm acquired by Apple (AAPL). However, Rivos was sued by Apple for alleged theft of trade secrets, which led to a countersuit by Rivos claiming illegal intimidation. The two companies settled in early 2024 [1].

The funding round comes at a time when Nvidia is facing potential delays in the release of its next-gen GPU, Rubin, due to redesign issues [2]. Additionally, Intel's rating was maintained at Citi after Q2 microprocessor market share data showed Nvidia taking most of its profits before Q2 earnings [3].

References:
[1] https://seekingalpha.com/news/4484823-ai-chip-startup-rivos-pursues-500m-funding-round-to-design-gpus-challenge-nvidia-report
[2] More on Intel Corporation and NVIDIA Nvidia: Take Most Of Your Profits Before Q2 Earnings Beneath The AI Hype: Cracks Are Forming In Nvidia's Fortress Nvidia Vs. AMD: Navigating Trump And China Nvidia's Rubin, its next-gen GPU, faces possible delay due to redesign: Fubon AMD, Intel's rating maintained at Citi after Q2 microprocessor market share data