Samsung Backs Nvidia AI Chip Rival

Samsung has backed Dutch AI chipmaker Euclyd in a $231 million funding round, highlighting the growing investment in alternatives to Nvidia’s dominant AI processors.

Euclyd, founded in 2024, raised €200 million in Series A funding from Somerset Capital Partners, the Scaleup Europe Fund managed by EQT, Innovation Industries, and Samsung, which co-led the round.

The startup is developing an AI chip system based on a different architecture from traditional graphics processing units (GPUs). Its technology is designed specifically for AI inference, the process of running trained AI models to generate results, and includes both processor and memory architecture.

Challenging Nvidia’s dominance

Nvidia became the leading supplier of advanced AI chips after its GPUs, originally developed primarily for gaming, were adapted for training and running increasingly sophisticated AI models.

The company now holds a dominant position in the market for high-end AI processors. However, major cloud providers and emerging chip companies are increasingly developing alternatives as demand for AI computing continues to accelerate.

OpenAI announced in August that its first AI chip, Jalapeño, had achieved what it described as industry-leading speed and efficiency. Google, Amazon Web Services, and Meta are also developing their own AI processors.

The growing interest reflects a broader effort to reduce dependence on a single chip architecture and address the rising cost and energy requirements of AI infrastructure.

Focus on efficiency

Euclyd believes its technology can reduce both the energy consumption and cost associated with AI data center infrastructure.

The company has not yet demonstrated its systems at commercial scale, making future deployments an important test of its technology. Its strategy is focused on AI inference, where efficiency can become increasingly important as AI applications move from experimentation into widespread commercial use.

Euclyd plans to pursue two main revenue streams.

The first is selling physical chip and rack systems to enterprise customers that want secure, self-hosted AI inference capabilities. The second is licensing its intellectual property to companies that want to develop their own AI chips using Euclyd’s underlying technology.

This gives the company exposure to both direct hardware sales and the broader semiconductor ecosystem.

Why Samsung matters

Samsung’s involvement could provide Euclyd with more than financial backing.

Samsung is one of the world’s largest memory manufacturers and has extensive expertise in semiconductor engineering, systems development, and global supply chains. Those capabilities could be valuable to a young chip company seeking to move from technology development to commercial production.

For Euclyd, access to manufacturing knowledge and semiconductor supply networks could become particularly important as it works toward producing physical systems at scale.

The company aims to begin rolling out its chip systems in 2028 and expects to serve thousands of enterprise customers by 2030.

A growing AI chip market

The investment highlights a broader shift within the AI industry. As AI computing demand expands, companies are looking beyond Nvidia to develop processors that may offer greater efficiency, lower costs, or specialized performance for particular workloads.

For investors, the opportunity extends beyond individual chip designers. Memory manufacturers, semiconductor equipment companies, foundries, data center operators, and other infrastructure providers could all benefit from the continued expansion of AI computing.

The key question for emerging Nvidia rivals will be whether their technologies can move from promising designs to reliable commercial deployments. If they can demonstrate meaningful improvements in cost, energy efficiency, or performance, the market for AI processors could become significantly more competitive over the coming years.