Top funded AI chip startup companies 2021

SambaNova Systems was the top funded artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup company worldwide as of August 2021, receiving over 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in funding in total.

Traditional competitors

Some of the biggest names are involved in the development of AI chips, including traditional players like Intel, Samsung, Broadcom, and Qualcomm, with major investment going into the development of this technology. Graphics processing units (GPUs) have been favored for AI applications due to their ability to perform millions of mathematical operations in parallel, with AMD and Nvidia being notable players.

New innovators

In addition to the traditional chip makers, larger tech firms like Apple and Google are also looking to innovate in the AI chips space, with the latter producing the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) – an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developed specifically for AI activities. Startups are also having to compete against the developments being made by potential customers such as Amazon, Facebook, and Tencent.