San Diego, California-based Unconventional AI, the human brain-inspired computing startup founded just two months ago by former Databricks head of AI, Naveen Rao, has confirmed its massive $475 million seed funding round at a valuation of $4.5 billion.
The round marks one of the biggest early stage fundraises in the AI hardware sector this year, intensifying competition among companies trying to redesign the compute foundation powering artificial intelligence.
The financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Lux Capital, DCVC, Jeff Bezos, Databricks and Rao himself who invested $10 million of his own capital on the same terms as external backers.
Bloomberg first reported that the raise is the initial installment of what could become a $1 billion round as the company prototypes multiple architectures.
Rao said the company’s mission is to rethink how AI is powered by building hardware that moves beyond the energy constraints of modern GPUs. He has described Unconventional AI’s vision as creating a computer “as efficient as biology,” drawing on neuromorphic and analog computing principles to build systems capable of scaling without hitting power ceilings.
“AI is intrinsically linked to hardware, and hardware is intrinsically linked to power. We can’t scale beyond a certain number of inferences per unit time because of the energy problem. We can’t produce that much more energy in the next 10 years,” Naveen Rao told The Register. He added that natural learning systems never relied on numerical simulation, saying, “They use the intrinsic physics of whatever substrate they’re on to build a learning system. We believe we can recapitulate that behavior in silicon.”
Rao declined to detail the final architecture, but confirmed that Unconventional AI is pursuing analog chip designs fabricated in silicon, complemented by neuromorphic computing approaches that mimic biological processes. The company’s founder lineup includes MIT professor Michael Carbin, hardware leader Sara Archour and semiconductor expert MeeLan Lee.
Rao’s track record gives the industry little reason to doubt execution. He previously co-founded Nervana Systems, which Intel acquired for more than $400 million in 2016, and MosaicML, which Databricks bought for $1.3 billion in 2023. His new venture places him at the center of a rapidly expanding sector of brain inspired computing startups including SpiNNcloud, Rain AI, Cortical Labs and efforts from Intel and UK and Australian research centers.
The rush into neuromorphic and analog AI hardware comes as the industry confronts growing limitations of GPU based systems, particularly energy consumption and scaling bottlenecks. Investors backing Unconventional AI say the next wave of AI progress will require new hardware paradigms capable of unlocking higher efficiency.
Rao told Bloomberg that the next several years will be dedicated to experimenting with multiple prototypes to determine which architecture scales most cost effectively. With its seed round already at nearly half a billion dollars and further capital expected, Unconventional AI is positioned as one of the most closely watched players in the race to reinvent AI compute.
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