Nvidia competitor Etched hits $5B valuation, $1B in sales for AI chip
Nvidia AI chip competitor Etched says it has already booked $1 billion under contract for the inference systems powered by its chip.
Get smart on it
Etched is an AI chip startup that has reached a $5 billion valuation and booked $1 billion in contract orders for its chip systems. The company's chips are designed to run AI inference, which is the process after a user submits a prompt and currently represents the biggest cost and bottleneck for AI companies serving customers at scale. Etched's systems bundle its chips with custom-designed racks and software to help frontier models run inference faster, more cheaply, and with better power efficiency than competitors. The announcement comes as investors increasingly chase AI chip technology, with multiple competitors in the space raising significant funding and major companies building their own custom chips.
Related news
Data Center Power Coalition Launches to Tackle AI’s Biggest Bottleneck
As utilities struggle to keep pace with AI-driven demand, a new industry coalition aims to create a common playbook for powering next-generation data centers.
Digital Realty Pays $3.5B for Blackstone Data Center Stakes
The deal reflects the operator’s strategy to scale its footprint amid surging AI-driven demand for data center infrastructure, while potentially signaling Blackstone’s shift toward higher-return investments.
