Tenstorrent 完成 1.5 亿美元 E 轮融资，估值达 62 亿美元

UPDATED 08:00 EDT / OCTOBER 19 2026

INFRA

Chip legend Jim Keller’s Tenstorrent raises $1.5B to expand its open compute ecosystem

by Mike Wheatley

Artificial intelligence computing hardware startup Tenstorrent Inc. is pushing hard to position itself as an alternative to Nvidia Corp.’s graphics processing units after raising a massive $1.5 billion in a late-stage funding round today.

The Series E round was jointly led by Trace Capital and Innovation X and saw participation from new and existing backers including Protagonist, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Management & Research Co., ARK Invest and T. Rowe Price. It brings the startup’s valuation to $6.2 billion.

Toronto-based Tenstorrent is led by its Chief Executive Jim Keller (pictured), who is widely regarded as a legend in the semiconductor industry, having previously helped to design a number of groundbreaking processors for the likes of Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc.

The startup originally set out as a chip designer but quickly pivoted to offer more than just the bare silicon. Today, it sells a complete portfolio of AI compute platforms, ranging from its Galaxy servers, TT-QuietBox workstations and its Blackhole cards for laptops.

Those platforms are powered by its specialized Tensix Neo accelerators and its Ascalon central processing units, which are both based on the open-standard RISC-V instruction set. They’re designed to be extremely scalable and energy-efficient, capable of producing top-tier performance for AI workloads without runaway power consumption, ensuring costs remain low.

Its best-selling products are the Galaxy Tenstorrent servers, which are enterprise-class systems that can work in coordination with others to create massive superclusters for training and running advanced frontier models. According to Tenstorrent, the Galaxy servers are already being used by companies such as Virtu Financial Inc. to power on-premises AI trading agents, while the data center colocation provider Equinix Inc. also makes them available to enterprises.

Developers who need immense compute locally may be more interested in Tenstorrent’s TT-QuietBox (below), which is a liquid-cooled desktop AI workstation that has enough power to test and run cutting-edge models right out of the box, with minimal setup. These systems are powered by Tenstorrent’s Blackhole cards, which are infinitely scalable PCIe boards packed with massive RISC-V cores and GDDR6 memory to enable high-performance AI processing in a very small package. For larger workloads, it’s possible to network multiple Blackhole cards and TT-QuietBoxes to pool their memory and compute.

Hardware is one thing, but where Tenstorrent really sets itself apart is that it also develops all of the software needed to make its platforms usable. It has also developed an open-source software stack that gives developers the ability to bring any AI workload to its hardware.

This stack consists of TT-Forge, a compiler that bridges machine learning frameworks like PyTorch to its RISC-V chips; TT-Metalium, which is a software development kit for hardware optimization and custom kernel development; and TT-LLK, for low-level kernel optimizations. These three components combine to enable developers to compile, fine-tune and then execute AI models on its custom silicon.

Keller said Tenstorrent’s platform approach allows it to scale from a single workstation to massive cloud-based clusters. “We’ve built one architecture and we sell it at every size,” He explained. “The future of compute is open, scalable and owned by the people building on it.”

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that Tenstorrent is one of a growing number of innovative startups trying to build more efficient computing platforms for AI, and the pedigree track record of its CEO Keller means it’s also one of the most promising. “Tenstorrent gets the funding it needs to keep innovating, and this is good news for enterprises,” the analyst said. “Nvidia is not the only option anymore. More competition and deployment options for AI compute can only be beneficial for enterprises, making AI workloads cheaper and more flexible.”

The funds from today’s round mean that Tenstorrent now has the muscle to ramp up production of its Galaxy servers, which will be deployed globally to support developers running massive large language models and video generation workloads. Some of the money will be given to its research team, which will look to advance innovation in the RISC-V ecosystem. Finally, Tenstorrent plans to expand its workforce globally.

Protagonist co-founder and Managing Partner George Bousis said Tenstorrent’s full platform approach sets it apart from the legions of startups scrambling to provide a viable alternative to Nvidia’s GPU ecosystem. “Few companies design the chip and the software that runs on it, but Tenstorrent does both, and its video generation results beat industry benchmarks ahead of our expectations,” he said.

Photos: Tenstorrent

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.

15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more

11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network

Are you an AWS customer? Support SiliconANGLE financially by buying your AWS services from our Marketplace portal page and links: https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/

About SiliconANGLE Media

SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.

Tenstorrent 完成 1.5 亿美元 E 轮融资，估值达 62 亿美元

推荐理由

主题

标签

正文