Ricursive Intelligence Launches Frontier AI Lab to Transform Semiconductor Design and Accelerate Path Toward Artificial Superintelligence

[Daniel Nenni]

World-Renowned AI Chip Design Pioneers Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini Secure $35M Seed Round Led by Sequoia Capital at $750M Final Valuation

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricursive Intelligence, a frontier AI lab with the mission to transform semiconductor design, launched today and announced its $35 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital at a $750 million final valuation. Founded by Dr. Anna Goldie and Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, who pioneered AI for chip design with their seminal AlphaChip work, Ricursive Intelligence aims to close the recursive self-improvement loop between AI and the chips that fuel it.



Ricursive Intelligence is building a next-generation platform that uses AI to accelerate and optimize every stage of the semiconductor design process, creating a recursive feedback loop: AI models design the next generation of chips and those chips, in turn, train more advanced AI models. This tight, continuous feedback accelerates both hardware and AI capabilities, creating the compute foundation that future frontier systems and artificial superintelligence will require.

"Chips are the fuel for progress in AI, and the multi-year chip design process is holding back the field," said Dr. Anna Goldie, Founder and CEO. "At Ricursive Intelligence, we're using AI to revolutionize chip design, developing superior hardware in a fraction of the time. By closing the loop between AI and hardware, we can accelerate progress toward artificial superintelligence and enable a Cambrian explosion of custom silicon."

"AI's biggest breakthroughs have emerged through scale, made possible by advances in chip design," said Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, Founder and CTO. "We're using AI to accelerate AI, creating a feedback loop where our models design the next generation of AI chips, which in turn enables more capable AI models. This recursive improvement cycle will create the hardware needed to support increasingly capable AI systems, ultimately paving the way for the silicon substrate that superintelligence will require."

Sequoia's investment represents strong conviction in Ricursive Intelligence's founders, technical differentiation, and market potential to accelerate the semiconductor landscape. "Ricursive Intelligence is positioned to be the leading frontier lab applying AI to transform the chip design process," said Stephanie Zhan, Partner at Sequoia Capital. "As the industry pushes toward AI transforming the chip design process, we will not only accelerate timelines to design new chips, but even more importantly, we will also unlock new creative chip designs that will massively accelerate the field of AI in its entirety."

Ricursive Intelligence will leverage the funding to scale its AI research, expand its compute infrastructure, and bring its platform to early enterprise. It will hyperscale partners to deliver AI-optimized chip design at unprecedented speed and efficiency. Ricursive Intelligence is uniquely positioned to break the hardware bottleneck that constrains AI progress and to forge the path toward artificial superintelligence.

About Ricursive Intelligence
Ricursive Intelligence is a frontier AI lab building the compute foundation for the next generation of AI. Founded by Dr. Anna Goldie and Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, the scientists who pioneered AI for chip design and co-created AlphaChip, Ricursive Intelligences applies AI and distributed computing to drastically compress semiconductor development timelines. The company's platform creates a recursive self-improvement cycle where AI designs silicon that powers the next generation of AI. By removing the hardware bottleneck that has held back AI progress, Ricursive Intelligence is forging a path toward artificial superintelligence and unlocking a Cambrian explosion of custom chips. Visit ricursive.com to learn more.

About Sequoia
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. We aim to be the first true believers in tomorrow's most valuable and enduring businesses. We partner with a few outliers each year and go all-in, providing them with the hands-on help required at every stage of the company building journey. Our expertise comes from 50 years of working with legendary founders like Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jan Koum, Jensen Huang, Brian Chesky, Jack Dorsey, Eric Yuan, Lynn Jurich, Patrick Collison, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and Christina Cacioppo. In aggregate, Sequoia-backed companies account for more than 30% of NASDAQ's total value. Since our inception, the vast majority of the money we invest has been on behalf of nonprofits and schools like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT, which means most of the returns we generate benefit these great causes.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ricursive-intelligence-launches-frontier-ai-180000369.html

 

[swka]

World-Renowned AI Chip Design Pioneers Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini Secure $35M Seed Round Led by Sequoia Capital at $750M Final Valuation

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricursive Intelligence, a frontier AI lab with the mission to transform semiconductor design, launched today and announced its $35 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital at a $750 million final valuation. Founded by Dr. Anna Goldie and Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, who pioneered AI for chip design with their seminal AlphaChip work, Ricursive Intelligence aims to close the recursive self-improvement loop between AI and the chips that fuel it.



Ricursive Intelligence is building a next-generation platform that uses AI to accelerate and optimize every stage of the semiconductor design process, creating a recursive feedback loop: AI models design the next generation of chips and those chips, in turn, train more advanced AI models. This tight, continuous feedback accelerates both hardware and AI capabilities, creating the compute foundation that future frontier systems and artificial superintelligence will require.

"Chips are the fuel for progress in AI, and the multi-year chip design process is holding back the field," said Dr. Anna Goldie, Founder and CEO. "At Ricursive Intelligence, we're using AI to revolutionize chip design, developing superior hardware in a fraction of the time. By closing the loop between AI and hardware, we can accelerate progress toward artificial superintelligence and enable a Cambrian explosion of custom silicon."

"AI's biggest breakthroughs have emerged through scale, made possible by advances in chip design," said Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, Founder and CTO. "We're using AI to accelerate AI, creating a feedback loop where our models design the next generation of AI chips, which in turn enables more capable AI models. This recursive improvement cycle will create the hardware needed to support increasingly capable AI systems, ultimately paving the way for the silicon substrate that superintelligence will require."

Sequoia's investment represents strong conviction in Ricursive Intelligence's founders, technical differentiation, and market potential to accelerate the semiconductor landscape. "Ricursive Intelligence is positioned to be the leading frontier lab applying AI to transform the chip design process," said Stephanie Zhan, Partner at Sequoia Capital. "As the industry pushes toward AI transforming the chip design process, we will not only accelerate timelines to design new chips, but even more importantly, we will also unlock new creative chip designs that will massively accelerate the field of AI in its entirety."

Ricursive Intelligence will leverage the funding to scale its AI research, expand its compute infrastructure, and bring its platform to early enterprise. It will hyperscale partners to deliver AI-optimized chip design at unprecedented speed and efficiency. Ricursive Intelligence is uniquely positioned to break the hardware bottleneck that constrains AI progress and to forge the path toward artificial superintelligence.

About Ricursive Intelligence
Ricursive Intelligence is a frontier AI lab building the compute foundation for the next generation of AI. Founded by Dr. Anna Goldie and Dr. Azalia Mirhoseini, the scientists who pioneered AI for chip design and co-created AlphaChip, Ricursive Intelligences applies AI and distributed computing to drastically compress semiconductor development timelines. The company's platform creates a recursive self-improvement cycle where AI designs silicon that powers the next generation of AI. By removing the hardware bottleneck that has held back AI progress, Ricursive Intelligence is forging a path toward artificial superintelligence and unlocking a Cambrian explosion of custom chips. Visit ricursive.com to learn more.

About Sequoia
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. We aim to be the first true believers in tomorrow's most valuable and enduring businesses. We partner with a few outliers each year and go all-in, providing them with the hands-on help required at every stage of the company building journey. Our expertise comes from 50 years of working with legendary founders like Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jan Koum, Jensen Huang, Brian Chesky, Jack Dorsey, Eric Yuan, Lynn Jurich, Patrick Collison, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and Christina Cacioppo. In aggregate, Sequoia-backed companies account for more than 30% of NASDAQ's total value. Since our inception, the vast majority of the money we invest has been on behalf of nonprofits and schools like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT, which means most of the returns we generate benefit these great causes.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ricursive-intelligence-launches-frontier-ai-180000369.html

They clearly trying to leverage their success in AlphaChip and RL based model to capture the entire digital flow. Conceptually, exactly the kind of AI native development I think need to happen to cause disruption. On the other hand, they will have to development/partner various verification throughout the chain.

One thing not clear to me is that exactly how much TPU physical design has bene using this technology. We know Broadcom owns TPU chip design. Broadcom team has been enabled to use this internal google tool?

The other interesting point is the valuation. For a seed stage startup, they gave up 5% only, let alone the $750M post money. Looks like the hype and the pedigree of co-founders play an outsized role

 

[blueone]

One thing not clear to me is that exactly how much TPU physical design has bene using this technology. We know Broadcom owns TPU chip design. Broadcom team has been enabled to use this internal google tool?

I've been confused about who does what in the Google TPU chip design. I know the TPU uses significant Broadcom IP (I've assumed hard IP blocks), and that Broadcom does the physical design (the back-end). But does Google own the logic design, or does Broadcom?

 

[swka]

I've been confused about who does what in the Google TPU chip design. I know the TPU uses significant Broadcom IP (I've assumed hard IP blocks), and that Broadcom does the physical design (the back-end). But does Google own the logic design, or does Broadcom?

I have not seen any details on this either. The old ASIC model, now custom silicon, have a wide range in this regard. Not sure where this relationship fall

 

[lilo777]

They clearly trying to leverage their success in AlphaChip and RL based model to capture the entire digital flow. Conceptually, exactly the kind of AI native development I think need to happen to cause disruption. On the other hand, they will have to development/partner various verification throughout the chain.

One thing not clear to me is that exactly how much TPU physical design has bene using this technology. We know Broadcom owns TPU chip design. Broadcom team has been enabled to use this internal google tool?

The other interesting point is the valuation. For a seed stage startup, they gave up 5% only, let alone the $750M post money. Looks like the hype and the pedigree of co-founders play an outsized role

Well, this is what Google (Gemini ) tells about the merits of this approach:

The merits of the AlphaChip approach have been a subject of significant debate and scrutiny outside Google.

• Commercial and Academic Adoption: The AlphaChip method has inspired substantial follow-up research in AI for chip design, and its open-source code has been built upon by external academics and other chipmakers. For instance, MediaTek announced in September 2024 that it would use AlphaChip as part of its chip development process.
• Skepticism and Critique: Despite commercial adoption, several external researchers and industry observers, notably Igor Markov (an employee at Synopsys, a competing EDA tools vendor), published critiques questioning the performance claims.
  • - Critics argued that in independent tests, conventional optimization methods like Simulated Annealing produced better results when given a comparable time budget, and that the academic community could not verify Google's claims using public benchmarks.
  • - Google did not initially release public benchmarks to substantiate its claims, which led some experts to describe the assertions as "hype".
• Google's Response and Nature's Investigation: Google DeepMind has vigorously refuted the criticisms, publishing a response paper and providing internal data to support its method's efficacy in production environments. The journal Nature, where the original paper was published, conducted a lengthy independent investigation and a second peer review process, eventually concluding "entirely in [Google's] favor" and adding an addendum to the paper instead of a correction.
• 
  
• In summary, while Google maintains that external partners use and validate the technology in real-world products, the academic community has struggled to independently reproduce the original paper's "superhuman" claims on public benchmarks, leading to an ongoing scientific debate.