Axelera AI Secures $68m for Data Center Expansion

Dutch edge AI chip developer Axelera AI has recently secured $68 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round, bringing the total amount raised to $120 million. The company plans to utilize this funding to expand its operations into the US and Middle East markets, as well as venture into various sectors such as automotive, digital healthcare, Industry 4.0, retail, robots & drones, and surveillance systems.

Axelera AI is set to introduce its Metis AI Platform, which is projected to enhance efficiency and performance by 3-5 times through the utilization of in-memory compute and custom RISC-V cores specifically designed for computer vision AI. The platform is expected to enter full production by the second half of 2024, with a substantial pipeline of $100 million already in place.

The Series B round saw participation from major institutional investors, including Invest-NL Deep Tech Fund, the European Innovation Council Fund, Innovation Industries Strategic Partners Fund, Samsung Catalyst Fund, as well as existing investors Verve Ventures, Innovation Industries, Fractionelera, and the Italian sovereign fund CDP Venture Capital SGR.

With the additional funding, Axelera AI aims to expand its product offerings from the edge to the data center to cater to the increasing demand for generative AI, large language models, and large multi-modal models. This strategic move includes the development of high-efficiency AI accelerators to power future exa-scale and peta-scale HPC centers, addressing the evolving computing requirements in the industry.

Commenting on the significance of AI in various sectors, Fabrizio Del Maffeo, Co-Founder and CEO at Axelera AI, stated, “There’s no denying that the AI industry has the potential to transform a multitude of sectors. However, to truly harness the value of AI, organizations need a solution that delivers high-performance and efficiency while balancing cost. This funding supports our mission to democratize access to artificial intelligence, from the edge to the cloud."

Del Maffeo further added, “By expanding our product lines beyond the edge computing market, we are able to address industry challenges in AI inference and support current and future AI processing needs with our scalable, proven technology.” The company's innovative architecture aims to minimize data movement between memory and compute elements, overcoming the "Memory Wall" challenge and significantly reducing power consumption, which is crucial for AI applications at the edge and beyond.

According to Marco Chisari, Head of Samsung Semiconductor Innovation Center and Executive Vice President at Samsung Electronics, "Axelera AI’s architecture minimizes data movement between memory and compute elements, aiming to overcome the 'Memory Wall' challenge. It also has the promise of significantly reducing power consumption, a critical attribute for AI applications at the edge and beyond."

Axelera AI is currently shipping evaluation kits for those interested in exploring its cutting-edge technology. To learn more about the Metis AI Platform and evaluation kits, visit www.axelera.ai/metis-evaluation-kit.