GoKawiilRodrigo Liang, Co-founder & CEO, SambaNova Systems, on the AI Summit stage during day two of Web Summit Vancouver 2026 at Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, Canada. Shauna Clinton | Sportsfile | Getty Images
An AI chip startup has raised $1 billion in financing as investors continue to pour money into companies looking to challenge Nvidia . SambaNova is now valued at $11 billion thanks to the financing, which was led by General Atlantic along with participation from Seligman Ventures, T. Rowe Price and Capital Group. The latest round of funding, announced Wednesday, comes after the startup raised more than $350 million earlier this year from investors including Intel , with which it also announced a partnership.
How SambaNova is targeting AI inference
SambaNova is one of a slew of startups looking to make waves in the market for inference chips. These are semiconductors designed to run large AI models in a quick and cost-efficient manner, which has become a particular focus for the industry as more complex AI agents are deployed. The company sells its latest chip — the SN50 — as part of a server unit that can be deployed in data centers. This is different to the graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture that Nvidia has sold and has been critical for training huge AI models.
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