Venture funding for chip startups has doubled in the last five years thanks to AI

[Daniel Nenni]

Funding for chip startups used to be rare. But in the last five years it’s more than doubled. Here’s why.

The raw computational power necessary to use machine learning has dwarfed everything else we use computer chips to accomplish by an order of magnitude. And that appetite for power has created a booming market for chip startups for the first time in years and helped double venture capital investments over the past five years.

Venture funding for chip startups has doubled in the last five years thanks to AI

Funding for chip startups used to be rare. But in the last five years it’s more than doubled. Here’s why.

www.protocol.com

 

[Daniel Nenni]

In the late 90s we used to joke about adding dot com to our semiconductor company names to get funding. Now it's AI but as I have said before AI will touch a huge amount of chip designs so the AI chip bubble is just starting. With AI and the chip shortage narrative keeping semiconductors front page there has never been a better time to start a company in the semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Except of course during the fabless transformation of the 1980s-90s but that is ancient history to most people.

 

[John East]

AI is going to be huge. No doubt about it. But --- when the dust settles there will be a small handful of companies that are still standing.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

AI is going to be huge. No doubt about it. But --- when the dust settles there will be a small handful of companies that are still standing.

I agree, AI will be IP, a chiplet or an integrated part of monolithic designs. I don't see a long life for AI specific chips sitting inside electronic products.

 

[Xebec]

In the late 90s we used to joke about adding dot com to our semiconductor company names to get funding. Now it's AI but as I have said before AI will touch a huge amount of chip designs so the AI chip bubble is just starting. With AI and the chip shortage narrative keeping semiconductors front page there has never been a better time to start a company in the semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Except of course during the fabless transformation of the 1980s-90s but that is ancient history to most people.

Can confirm this also in the US Defense industry. All proposals always include atleast some mention of AI even if it just means they will write a few lines of code with logic...