Intel Veterans' Startup Delos Data Raises $100 Million for AI Networking Chips

Delos Data, a startup founded by veterans of Intel Corp., announced Tuesday it has raised $100 million to develop specialized chips and software for high-speed data movement in artificial intelligence data centers. The funding round aims to address the growing complexity and hardware diversity in AI infrastructure.

Addressing a Market Shift

The financing comes as the AI hardware landscape evolves beyond its initial reliance on Nvidia's GPUs and proprietary networking. Data centers are increasingly deploying a mix of computing hardware from rivals like Advanced Micro Devices and Cerebras Systems, creating a need for flexible, high-performance networking solutions that can work across different platforms.

Delos Data's technology is designed to ensure that expensive and power-intensive computing chips can communicate with maximum speed, regardless of the specific hardware mix. "We don’t know what the next infrastructure architecture is going to be for agentic (AI)," said Delos Data Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Dan Daly in an interview with Reuters. "But we do know that we can provide the quickest, fastest way to move that data around."

The Cost of Data Bottlenecks

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The primary challenge Delos aims to solve is the inefficiency caused by computing chips waiting for data, a significant source of wasted capital and energy. Pat Gelsinger, a partner at venture firm Playground and former Intel CEO, highlighted the problem, stating that without effective communication, data centers have "lots of hot hardware, burning watts and sitting here twiddling their thumbs."

The funding round included investors such as:

• Matrix Partners
• Playground
• Socratic Partners
• Capricorn
• Matter Venture Partners
• IAG
• DYNAMIQ