AI Chipmaker Tenstorrent Raises $1.5 Billion

Tenstorrent is a startup that develops specialized chips for processing user requests made to artificial intelligence (AI) models. The company has raised $1.5 billion (approximately 2.55 billion manats) in funding. This has brought Tenstorrent’s valuation to $6.2 billion (approximately 10.54 billion manats). The company will use the money to expand its work on AI chips.

The new funding round was led by Trace Capital and Innovation X. Investors also include Cadence Ventures, Eclipse, Fidelity, SanDisk and T. Rowe Price. Following the investment, the company’s valuation has more than doubled from $2.6 billion (approximately 4.42 billion manats) at the end of 2024. The startup has been operating for 10 years.

Five months before this round, Intel and Qualcomm had expressed interest in acquiring Tenstorrent. During the discussions, it was said that the startup’s valuation could reach $5 billion (approximately 8.5 billion manats). CEO Jim Keller said the company would remain independent and raise additional funding.

This decision was made after it was demonstrated that Galaxy servers could run DeepSeek models. The new funding will accelerate the development of chips for open-weight AI models. Tenstorrent will also invest in chips for video-generation systems. Such hardware is designed to help existing AI models process user requests faster.

Tenstorrent is one of the startups seeking to reduce Nvidia’s dominance in the AI hardware market. Etched, which develops chips in the same field, has received investment offers based on a valuation of $40 billion (approximately 68 billion manats) or higher. Both startups are seeking to create an alternative to the market leader with specialized chips that run AI models.