Key Highlights
- Intel participates in a $350 million Series E funding round for AI chip developer SambaNova Systems, joining Vista Equity Partners, Battery Ventures, and T. Rowe Price as co-investors.
- A multiyear strategic partnership accompanies the investment, with SambaNova committing to integrate Intel server processors and graphics processing units.
- Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan served as SambaNova’s chairman beginning in 2017 and made early investments through Walden International, his venture capital firm.
- Acquisition discussions valued at $1.6 billion between the companies ended without agreement.
- SambaNova’s latest SN50 processor delivers five times greater compute capability per accelerator compared to Nvidia’s B200 GPUs, according to company claims.
Intel has committed capital to AI chip developer SambaNova Systems through a $350 million Series E financing round.
The investment accompanies a multiyear commercial agreement under which SambaNova will incorporate Intel server processors and graphics cards into its offerings.
This partnership emerges following earlier reports that Intel had considered purchasing SambaNova completely for approximately $1.6 billion, including debt obligations. Bloomberg and Reuters reported in January that these acquisition discussions ultimately failed to produce an agreement.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan maintains deep connections with SambaNova. His venture capital firm, Walden International, made initial investments in the startup, and he assumed the chairman role in 2017 — eight years prior to his appointment as Intel’s chief executive.
Tan removed himself from internal deliberations regarding this partnership arrangement, an Intel spokesperson verified.
The Series E round welcomed additional investors including Vista Equity Partners, Cambium Capital, Battery Ventures, and investment accounts managed by T. Rowe Price. Previous financial backers include Google’s venture capital division, Qatar Investment Authority, and Seligman Ventures.
SambaNova serves major technology companies, with Hugging Face, Meta, and leading AI research organizations among its client roster.
SN50 Performance Claims Against Nvidia
SambaNova emphasizes the capabilities of its recently introduced SN50 processor. Company specifications indicate the chip provides five times greater computational power per accelerator and four times enhanced network bandwidth compared to the preceding generation.
CEO Rodrigo Liang asserts the SN50 surpasses the performance of GPUs deployed in Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell platforms while delivering superior computational efficiency per dollar invested. The architecture supports configurations linking up to 256 processors.
SoftBank, both an existing SambaNova client and significant OpenAI investor, will pioneer SN50 deployment within its upcoming AI data center facilities throughout Japan.
Intel’s Strategic Position
Intel’s revenue figures show a four-year consecutive decline. The semiconductor giant has maintained minimal presence in the AI chip surge that propelled Nvidia to become the world’s highest-valued publicly traded corporation.
Intel shares have climbed 75% during the past twelve months, fueled primarily by U.S. government funding commitments and an arrangement involving Nvidia.
Tan disclosed at a Cisco conference earlier this month that Intel has graphics card development underway.
The SambaNova collaboration provides Intel with access to AI infrastructure clientele during the continued development phase of that forthcoming product.
Liang exercised caution regarding implementation schedules when addressing CNBC. “We’re not doing all this overnight,” he said. “It’s something that we are doing some good planning work to make sure that we’re actually working this out.”
SambaNova intends to broaden its proprietary cloud platform for AI model execution and aims to market processor clusters designed for enterprise data center installations.
Intel Capital appears among the strategic investors joining the Series E financing round.
