London AI startup raises $10.25M to challenge Nvidia
A London-based startup aiming to challenge Nvidia's dominance in AI data center infrastructure has raised $10.25 million. The funding highlights investor appetite for platforms that can reduce dependency on closed hardware and software stacks. The company is focused on developing more open and scalable AI infrastructure.
The startup, Callosum, was founded by Cambridge-trained neuroscientists Danyal Akarca and Jascha Achterberg, who have a background in collaborating with Google's DeepMind. Their work is inspired by the brain's ability to use different specialized regions to handle tasks, a concept they are applying to AI by building software that orchestrates workloads across a mix of chip types. This approach directly challenges the prevailing "AI monoculture" of relying on homogenous clusters of identical GPUs. Callosum's systems-level software is designed to allow different AI models to work together across diverse hardware, including chips from Nvidia, AMD, AWS, Cerebras, and SambaNova. For complex, real-world tasks, the company claims its system can deliver double the accuracy, seven times the speed, and four times the cost savings compared to single-hardware setups. This focus on heterogeneous computing aims to extract optimal performance for specific tasks, a significant shift from scaling single models on uniform hardware. The $10.25 million funding round was led by Plural, a European VC firm founded by experienced tech founders, including Ian Hogarth of Songkick and Taavet Hinrikus of Wise, who aim to have a "GDP-level impact" on Europe with hands-on investment. The round also saw participation from the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), signaling government support for building sovereign AI infrastructure and fostering alternatives to the current hardware-dominated ecosystem. For adtech infrastructure, this type of architectural shift is highly relevant. As AI becomes the foundational operating system for programmatic advertising, driving everything from bidding to dynamic creative optimization (DCO), the underlying hardware's efficiency becomes a key competitive lever. A multi-chip approach could dramatically lower the cost and increase the speed of training models for campaign optimization and real-time analytics, especially as the industry grapples with signal loss from cookie deprecation. The 2026 Formula 1 season is set for a major shake-up with new engine regulations creating a 50/50 power split between combustion and electrical components and the introduction of active aerodynamics. Audi will join the grid as a works team for the first time, and Ford is returning to partner with Red Bull Powertrains, creating new competitive dynamics. In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has given the green light for the pedestrianisation of a 0.7-mile stretch of Oxford Street between Oxford Circus and Marble Arch. Separately, public health officials are urging families to check their children's vaccination status as measles cases continue to rise across the city.
