Atlas Chip Capable of Matching Nvidia's H100 Performance

AI Chips from Positron (Source: Positron)

Positron Raises $230 Million to Compete with Nvidia's AI Chips

Semiconductor startup Positron has raised $230 million in a Series B funding round. The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the rollout of high-speed memory chips, a crucial component in AI processing chips.

Among the investors in the round is the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which is increasingly focused on developing AI infrastructure, reflecting the country's ambition to become a major AI services hub in the region. This funding round comes as major service providers and AI companies seek to reduce their reliance on Nvidia, the historical leader in the field, according to a report by TechCrunch.

These companies include OpenAI, which, despite being one of Nvidia's largest customers, has expressed dissatisfaction with some of the company's recent chips and has been exploring alternatives since last year. Qatar’s support for companies like Positron reflects a broader strategy to build a sovereign AI infrastructure, a priority underscored by the Web Summit Qatar in Doha this week.

This strategy has manifested in significant commitments, most notably a $20 billion AI infrastructure joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management, announced last September.

This brings Positron’s total funding since its founding three years ago to over $300 million, following a $75 million funding round last year from investors such as Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, DFJ Growth, Flume Ventures, and Resilience Reserve.

Positron says its first-generation Atlas chip, manufactured in Arizona, can match the performance of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs while consuming less than a third of the power.

The company is focusing on inference—the calculations needed to run AI models in practical applications—rather than training on large models. This shift responds to the growing demand for inference hardware as companies move from building large models to deploying them at scale.

Sources indicate that Positron chips not only excel in memory but also demonstrate strong performance in video processing and high frequencies, positioning them as highly competitive in a rapidly growing market.