The $10 Billion Bet: Two Startups Take On Nvidia's AI Chip Monopoly

The AI chip startup scene just got louder. Etched, a Harvard-founded AI inference chip maker, secured fresh backing from memory giant SK Hynix to hit a $10.3 billion valuation, while Tel Aviv-based Majestic Labs unveiled its Prometheus server — a GPU-free AI system packing up to 128TB of cheap LPDDR6 memory instead of Nvidia's expensive HBM. Both companies are making the same audacious bet: that Nvidia's one-size-fits-all GPU approach is overkill for AI...