Groq, a startup developing specialized chips for generative AI, has raised $640 million in a new funding round led by BlackRock. The investment values the company at $2.8 billion, nearly tripling its previous valuation from 2021.
The Mountain View, California-based firm aims to accelerate AI workloads with its Language Processing Units (LPUs). Groq claims these chips can run generative AI models up to 10 times faster than conventional processors while using one-tenth of the energy.
Notable investors in this round include Neuberger Berman, Cisco, Samsung Catalyst Fund, and others. The funding brings Groq's total capital raised to over $1 billion, underlining strong investor interest in AI chip innovation.
Groq also announced two high-profile additions to its team. Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, will serve as a technical advisor. Stuart Pann, former head of Intel's foundry business, joins as chief operating officer to drive revenue growth and scale operations.
The company's GroqCloud platform, which offers access to various open AI models, has attracted over 356,000 developers since its launch. Groq plans to use the new funds to expand capacity and add features to this service.
As demand for AI computing power surges, Groq faces stiff competition from industry leader Nvidia and other tech giants developing custom AI chips. The startup is betting on its purpose-built LPUs and focus on inference tasks to carve out a niche in the rapidly growing AI chip market.
Groq CEO Jonathan Ross, who previously helped invent Google's Tensor Processing Unit, sees the funding as a major step forward. "This funding accelerates our vision of delivering instant AI inference compute to the world," Ross stated.
The company aims to deploy over 108,000 LPUs by early 2025 and is partnering with Samsung to manufacture its next-generation 4nm chips. As AI continues to reshape the tech landscape, Groq's progress will be closely watched by industry observers and potential customers alike.