Samsung backs chip startup
Samsung committed $50 million to Normal Computing, an AI chip‑design startup aimed at speeding silicon development and cutting AI power use — a direct bet on energy‑efficient architectures. (digitimes.com)
The financing brings Normal Computing’s total capital raised to more than $85 million, according to the company’s announcement. (prnewswire.com) New investors named in the filing include Galvanize, Brevan Howard Macro Venture Fund, and ArcTern Ventures, joining existing backers Celesta Capital, Drive Capital, Eric Schmidt’s First Spark Ventures, and Micron Ventures. (prnewswire.com) The round was led by Samsung’s corporate VC arm, Samsung Catalyst Fund, whose head of the fund is Dede Goldschmidt. (prnewswire.com) Normal says its Normal EDA platform shortens custom silicon time‑to‑market by roughly 2× today and that the company targets up to 1,000× energy‑efficiency gains over time through its architecture, statements attributed to CEO Faris Sbahi. (prnewswire.com) The startup last year announced the tape‑out of CN101, which it describes as the world’s first “thermodynamic” computing ASIC designed for AI/HPC workloads and claimed by the company to deliver orders‑of‑magnitude energy improvements on targeted inference and scientific tasks. (prnewswire.com) Normal reports that its platform is already partnered with more than half of the top‑ten semiconductor firms by revenue, and the company maintains offices in New York, San Francisco, London and Copenhagen with plans for further expansion. (prnewswire.com)
