Jeff Bezos backs AI chipmaker Tenstorrent

AI hardware startup Tenstorrent raised nearly $700 million in new funding.

Tenstorrent raised a $693 million Series D round that values the company at more than $2.6 billion, Bloomberg first reported. The round was led by Samsung Securities and AFW Partners. Other investors include Hyundai and Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, among others.

The Toronto-based company said it plans to use the capital to build out its engineering team and to build artificial intelligence training servers to demonstrate its technology. Jim Keller, famed microprocessor engineer and Tenstorrent CEO, told Bloomberg that the company plans to release a new AI processor every two years and has signed customer contracts totaling nearly $150 million.

Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 and is one of the many startups in the current race to chip away at Nvidia’s dominant AI chip market share. Other AI chip startups include Axelera, Etched and Groq, among many others.