SambaNova Banks $1B at $11B Valuation, Doubling Down on AI Inference Chips

AI chip developer SambaNova Systems has secured $1 billion in its first Series F close at an $11 billion valuation, with General Atlantic spearheading the round. Additional investors are expected to participate in a second close within weeks.

The funding marks a significant expansion for the Palo Alto startup just five months after its $350 million Series E in February and comes as the company pivots toward institutional adoption of specialized inference hardware. CEO Rodrigo Liang indicated the door remains open to strategic alternatives, including acquisition or going public, but said the company's momentum points toward remaining independent and eventually listing publicly.

Building Enterprise Demand Beyond Cloud#

SambaNova's recent victory signing JPMorgan Chase as an "inference-infrastructure partner" signals a broader shift in how financial institutions and enterprises are approaching AI deployment. Rather than relying exclusively on cloud providers, major organizations are building private, secure infrastructure to run sensitive models on-premises. Liang framed this as banks seeking "heterogeneous" infrastructure options—a diversification strategy that extends beyond the tech industry.

The company's chips, including the recently announced SN50 system set to ship to customers in the second half of 2026, are engineered to handle massive foundation models spanning trillions of parameters on a single rack, enabling faster inference performance. SoftBank will serve as SambaNova's first deployment partner for the SN50.

Deepening Intel Partnership#

SambaNova's ties to Intel have strengthened through a multi-year collaboration announced five months ago. The two companies are jointly developing and commercializing AI inference products based on Intel's Xeon architecture, giving SambaNova access to Intel's manufacturing scale while the chipmaker gains specialized inference capabilities. Intel is participating as an investor in the current round.

Capital for Supply Chain Security#

Liang emphasized that SambaNova faces extraordinary demand pressure and plans to deploy the funding primarily toward securing supply chains and fulfilling customer orders over the next 12 months. Identified customers include sovereign-cloud initiatives backed by governments, newer "neocloud" platforms, and enterprises building proprietary infrastructure. Beyond JPMorgan, the company counts Saudi Aramco, Intel, and Japanese firms among its customer base.