Groq, the AI‑chip developer that has repositioned itself as a data‑centre operator for inference workloads, raised $350 million in financing at a $3.5 billion valuation in a round led by Disruptive.
The company said it will use part of the proceeds to expand capacity to more than 200 megawatts next year and pointed to a June move in which it raised $650 million to fund that effort and reset its valuation.
Alex Davis, Groq’s executive chairman and founder of investment firm Disruptive, said: "Inference will without a doubt become the largest and most critical layer of AI infrastructure."
The financing values Groq at roughly half its peak last September when it was valued at $6.9 billion, a slide that followed a licensing deal with Nvidia in which the chipmaker hired Jonathan Ross and other staff and in which Nvidia is also set to invest, the company said in an announcement.
The company framed the round as funding its push to serve large model makers and to scale inference capacity, with the immediate milestone of surpassing 200 megawatts of data‑centre capacity next year.
