EXCLUSIVE: Positron raises $230M Series B to compete with Nvidia’s AI chips

Semiconductor startup Positron has secured $230 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate the deployment of high-speed memory chips, a critical component of chips used in artificial intelligence workloads, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Investors in the round include the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which is increasingly focused on building AI infrastructure, the sources said.

The Reno-based startup’s Series B comes as high-tech and artificial intelligence companies seek to reduce their dependence on longtime leader Nvidia. These companies include OpenAI, which, despite being one of Nvidia’s largest and most important customers, has been unhappy with some of the company’s latest AI chips and has been looking for alternatives since last year.

Meanwhile, Qatar, through the Qatar Investment Authority, is accelerating a broader push toward so-called “sovereign” AI infrastructure – a priority repeatedly emphasized at the Qatar Web Summit in Doha this week. Several sources told TechCrunch that the country views computing power as critical to remaining competitive on the global economic stage, and is positioning itself as a leading center for AI services in the Middle East, increasing interest in startups like Positron.

This strategy is already taking shape with significant commitments, including a $20 billion AI infrastructure joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management announced in September.

Positron’s fundraising brings the total capital raised for the three-year-old startup to just over $300 million. The startup previously raised $75 million last year from investors including Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, DFJ Growth, Flume Ventures, and Resilience Reserve.

The company claims that its first-generation chip, the Atlas, manufactured in Arizona, can match the performance of Nvidia H100 GPUs at less than a third of the power. Positron’s focus is on inference — the computation needed to run AI models for real-world applications — rather than training large language models, which positions the company as demand for inference hardware rises as companies increasingly shift focus from building large models to deploying them at scale.

Sources told TechCrunch that in addition to its memory capabilities, the Positron chips also perform strongly in high-frequency workloads and video processing.

TechCrunch has reached out to Positron for more information.