Tenstorrent, an AI chip startup, raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation, more than doubling its previous valuation from $2.6 billion. The round, led by Trace Capital and Innovation X, follows interest from Intel and Qualcomm in the company five months ago.
The fresh capital will be used to scale chips tailored for open-weight AI models and video generation. Jim Keller, Tenstorrent’s CEO, said the company decided to remain independent after demonstrating its Galaxy servers could run DeepSeek models.
"We showed that our Galaxy servers could run DeepSeek models, which led us to decide to stay independent and raise more capital," said Jim Keller, Tenstorrent’s CEO. The company is part of a wave of AI hardware startups challenging Nvidia’s dominance.
The announcement follows reports that Etched, another AI chip maker, was fielding investment offers at valuations of $40 billion or more. Tenstorrent did not say when it will launch its scaled chips, and the company is focusing on expanding its open-weight AI chip capabilities.
Source: techcrunch
