Market · AI in practice
Fractile raises $720 million for inference chips it still plans to make
British firm Fractile announced a $720 million Series C, led by Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Lightspeed and Redpoint, with the Sovereign AI fund and the British Business Bank. The UK government put the valuation at over £5 billion. The company plans to ship its first chips and systems next year.
What the sources report
British firm Fractile announced a $720 million Series C, led by Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Lightspeed and Redpoint, with backing from the UK's Sovereign AI fund and the British Business Bank. In its official statement, the UK government put the valuation at over £5 billion.
The company says the new capital will help it ship its first chips and systems next year. Its design stacks DRAM directly on the processor, aiming at memory bandwidth and at serving long-context inference.
My take
A round of this size, for a chip that is still a plan for next year, shows how much the next constraint, in real use, sits in memory and in the speed of serving the model.
Sources
- https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sovereign-ai-and-british-business-bank-invest-in-british-firm-developing-the-next-generation-of-ai-hardware (opens in a new tab) GOV.UK
- https://x.com/fractile_ai/status/2120519162925654070 (opens in a new tab) Fractile (X)
- https://x.com/fractile_ai/status/2120519254046888293 (opens in a new tab) Fractile (X, thread)