European Union-backed chipmaker SiPearl has raised 130 million euros (US$152 million) from investors including Taiwan’s Cathay Venture Inc (國泰創投), as Europe pushes for technological sovereignty.
The French start-up, which makes high-performance, energy-efficient processors for artificial intelligence (AI) and supercomputing, said it would use the Series A financing to invest in research and development and to industrialize its Rhea1 chip, which features 80 cores from chip designer Arm Holdings PLC and more than 61 billion transistors, according to a statement yesterday.
The Rhea1 chip will eventually help to power Jupiter, an EU-backed European supercomputer based in Germany and designed for use in strategic fields such as medical research, energy management and defense. SiPearl has recently appointed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to start manufacturing the chip, the company said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The investment is part of a broader European effort to pursue industrial sovereignty in the field of AI, after the continent missed out on the opportunity to create global internet and cloud companies, relying instead on US and Asian providers.
“The US hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI are designing their own chips, and they have the means to do it,” SiPearl chief executive officer Philippe Notton said during a press event. “European cloud players don’t have those means, and will rely on solutions like ours.”
SiPearl is the first French investment for Taiwanese private equity firm Cathay Venture, a subsidiary of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), a major investor in semiconductors and electronics. The European Innovation Council Fund, Arm and French IT firm Atos SE also participated in the round.
SiPearl was founded in 2019 and seed-funded by the EU under the European Processor Initiative consortium, which seeks to develop high-performance computing technologies in the continent. The company has 200 employees in France, Spain and Italy, and has set up data centers in France focused on chip design.
SiPearl will be looking to raise 200 million euros for its Series B between next year and 2028, chief financial officer Jean-Luc Gilbert said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS