AI Chip War Heats Up: $2B+ Funding for NVIDIA Rivals, Intel Enters GPU Race | February 5, 2026

Daily AI Blog

February 5, 2026

📋 Quick Takeaways

Cerebras Systems raises $1 billion at $23 billion valuation, nearly tripling in 4 months with AMD as strategic investor

ElevenLabs secures $500 million Series D at $11 billion valuation, plans expansion beyond voice into multimodal AI agents

NVIDIA and Dassault Systèmes announce strategic partnership to build industrial AI platform with “World Models”

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan announces aggressive move into data center GPUs, hiring chief architect to challenge NVIDIA

Bedrock Robotics raises $270 million at $1.75B valuation for autonomous construction equipment

DOJ and 35 states appeal Google search antitrust ruling, seeking Chrome divestiture and end to Apple default deal

🔥 AI Chip Infrastructure & Funding

1. Cerebras Systems Raises $1 Billion at $23 Billion Valuation

Landmark Investment: NVIDIA-rival Cerebras Systems announced the closing of a $1 billion Series H financing round, nearly tripling its valuation from $8.1 billion just four months prior.

Key Details:

Valuation: $23 billion post-money
Lead Investor: Tiger Global Management
Strategic Participants: AMD, Benchmark, Fidelity Management & Research, Atreides Management, Alpha Wave Global, Altimeter, Coatue, 1789 Capital

Strategic Significance:

Second billion-dollar round since September 2025
Signals investor appetite for NVIDIA alternatives in AI infrastructure
AMD’s participation underscores hyperscaler demand for chip supply diversification
Company’s wafer-scale processors reduce communication bottlenecks in large model training

OpenAI Partnership: Cerebras has signed a multiyear deal with OpenAI reportedly worth over $10 billion for up to 750 megawatts of computing capacity, reducing OpenAI’s dependence on NVIDIA.

Sources: Bloomberg | Reuters | Axios

2. ElevenLabs Secures $500 Million at $11 Billion Valuation

Voice AI Milestone: ElevenLabs announced a $500 million Series D funding round, more than tripling its valuation from January 2025’s $3.3 billion.

Investment Highlights:

Lead Investor: Sequoia Capital (Andrew Reed joining board)
Major Participants: Andreessen Horowitz (quadrupled investment), Iconiq (tripled investment), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, Bond
Total Raised: Over $781 million to date
ARR: $330 million in 2025, targeting double in 2026

Expansion Strategy:

Moving beyond voice into multimodal AI agents with video capabilities
Partnership with LTX for audio-to-video content
International expansion across India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico
Enterprise customers include Deutsche Telekom, Deliveroo, and the Ukrainian government

IPO Trajectory: Co-founder Mati Staniszewski stated the company is “building toward IPO and beyond.”

Sources: TechCrunch | Wall Street Journal | ElevenLabs Blog

3. NVIDIA and Dassault Systèmes Announce Strategic Industrial AI Partnership

Major Partnership: Jensen Huang and Pascal Daloz announced a long-term strategic partnership to build a shared industrial AI architecture for mission-critical applications across industries.

Partnership Scope:

Combines Dassault’s Virtual Twin technologies with NVIDIA AI infrastructure
Creates science-validated “Industry World Models” for manufacturing, biology, and engineering
Deploys AI factories on three continents through Dassault’s OUTSCALE sovereign cloud

Key Applications:

Biology & Materials: NVIDIA BioNeMo platform + BIOVIA world models for drug discovery
Engineering: SIMULIA AI-based Virtual Twin with NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries
Manufacturing: DELMIA Virtual Twins + NVIDIA Omniverse for autonomous production
Virtual Companions: AI assistants (Aura, Leo, Marie) for industrial workflows

Reciprocal Integration: NVIDIA will use Dassault’s model-based systems engineering (MBSE) to design its own AI factories, starting with the Rubin platform.

Sources: NVIDIA Blog | NVIDIA Newsroom | Dassault Systèmes

4. Intel Announces Aggressive Move Into Data Center GPUs

Strategic Shift: Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan announced at the Cisco AI Summit that the company will start producing GPUs for AI data centers, directly challenging NVIDIA and AMD’s dominance.

Key Developments:

Hired new chief architect to lead GPU development (name undisclosed)
Project overseen by Kevork Kechichian, EVP and GM of Intel’s data center group
Eric Demers (former Qualcomm SVP of Engineering) joined in January for the effort

Market Context:

Intel positioning for “second-source dynamic” as hyperscalers seek supply diversification
Cloud giants want optionality for pricing leverage and chip diversity across training and inference
Comes after Intel received $8.9B US government investment and $5B from NVIDIA in 2025

Memory Shortage Warning: Tan also warned of memory chip shortages lasting until 2028 as AI infrastructure demand outpaces supply.

Sources: TechCrunch | CNBC | Reuters

5. Bedrock Robotics Raises $270 Million for Autonomous Construction

Autonomous Equipment Milestone: Bedrock Robotics announced $270 million in Series B funding to transform heavy construction machinery into autonomous, coordinated fleets.

Funding Details:

Co-Lead Investors: CapitalG (Alphabet’s growth fund), Valor Atreides AI Fund
Participants: NVentures (NVIDIA), 8VC, Eclipse, Emergence Capital, Xora, Tishman Speyer, MIT, Georgian
Valuation: $1.75 billion
Total Raised: Over $350 million

Technology & Timeline:

Retrofit kits for excavators, bulldozers, and loaders with autonomous capabilities
Targeting first fully operator-less excavator deployments in 2026
Uses LiDAR, GPS, HD cameras, and onboard computing for environment perception

Market Need: Construction industry needs 800,000 new workers over the next two years, with project backlogs exceeding 8 months as of December 2025.

Leadership: Founded by former Waymo engineers; recent hires include Vincent Gonguet (former Meta AI safety lead) and John Chu (former Waymo Head of People).

Sources: PR Newswire | The Robot Report | New York Times via StartupNews

6. Positron AI Raises $230 Million at $1 Billion+ Valuation

Inference Chip Challenger: AI chip startup Positron secured $230 million in Series B funding, achieving unicorn status with a valuation exceeding $1 billion.

Investment Highlights:

Co-Lead Investors: ARENA Private Wealth, Jump Trading, Unless
Strategic Investors: Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Arm Holdings, Helena
Total Raised: Over $300 million

Technology Claims:

Atlas chip (manufactured in Arizona) matches NVIDIA H100 performance at one-third the power
Next-gen Asimov chip targeting tape-out late 2026, production early 2027
Claims 5x more tokens per watt vs. NVIDIA’s Rubin GPU for core workloads
2,304 GB RAM per device (vs. 384 GB for Rubin)

Geopolitical Significance: Qatar’s investment signals nation-states viewing AI compute capacity as critical to economic competitiveness, part of QIA’s broader push into “sovereign” AI infrastructure including a $20 billion JV with Brookfield.

Sources: TechCrunch | Bloomberg | Business Wire

⚖️ AI Policy & Regulation

7. DOJ and 35 States Appeal Google Search Antitrust Ruling

Continued Legal Battle: The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of 35 states filed notices to appeal the September 2025 antitrust ruling against Google.

Appeal Focus:

Challenges decision that rejected forcing Chrome browser divestiture
Seeks to end Google’s $20+ billion annual default search deal with Apple
Targets what plaintiffs consider “modest limits” insufficient to restore competition

Background:

Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August 2024 that Google illegally monopolized search market
September 2025 remedy ruling imposed limited restrictions but avoided structural changes
Google is separately appealing the original liability finding

Timeline: U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit expected to hear the case later in 2026, with decisions typically issued about one year after appeal filing.

Industry Impact: Outcome could reshape search distribution, potentially lowering barriers for AI-native “answer engine” challengers.

Sources: Bloomberg | Reuters | Search Engine Land

🏭 Enterprise AI & Acquisitions

8. Siemens Acquires Canopus AI for Semiconductor Manufacturing

Strategic Acquisition: Siemens announced the acquisition of French AI startup Canopus AI to enhance its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities with AI-driven metrology solutions.

Acquisition Details:

Target: Canopus AI (founded 2021, based in Grenoble, France)
Transaction Closed: January 12, 2026
Financial Terms: Not disclosed

Technology Integration:

AI-powered wafer and mask metrology and inspection
“Metrospection” approach enhancing measurement workflows with AI
Integration with Siemens’ Calibre Computational Lithography portfolio
Enables sub-nanometer process control and mask development

Industry Context: Addresses critical challenges as semiconductor device geometries shrink and production volumes scale, where traditional inspection approaches struggle with data volumes.

Sources: Siemens Newsroom | PR Newswire | eeNews Europe

9. TRM Labs Reaches $1 Billion Valuation with $70 Million Series C

Crypto Crime-Fighting Unicorn: Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs secured $70 million in Series C funding, achieving unicorn status.

Funding Highlights:

Lead Investor: Blockchain Capital
Participants: Goldman Sachs, Citi Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thoma Bravo, Brevan Howard Digital, Galaxy Ventures
Total Raised: $220 million
Revenue Growth: Averaged 150%+ annually over past five years

Platform Capabilities:

Traces cryptocurrency transactions across 30+ blockchains
Covers over 70 million assets with 150+ risk indicators
Serves FBI, IRS, and law enforcement across 50+ countries
T3 Financial Crime Unit partnership with Tron and Tether has frozen $300M+ in tainted assets

AI Threat Landscape: Company reports 500% increase in AI-enabled scams and fraud, describing it as a “civilization-level threat.”

Sources: Fortune | CoinDesk | Globe Newswire

10. Adaption Labs Launches with $50 Million Seed Funding

Continuous Learning AI: Former Cohere VP Sara Hooker launched Adaption Labs with $50 million in seed funding to build AI models that can learn and adapt continuously.

Funding Details:

Lead Investor: Emergence Capital Partners
Participants: Mozilla Ventures, Fifty Years, Threshold Ventures, Alpha Intelligence Capital, E14 Fund, Neo

Technology Vision:

Models that learn continuously without expensive retraining or fine-tuning
Reduces need for extensive prompt and context engineering
Bets against industry trend of ever-larger static models

Founding Team:

Sara Hooker (CEO): Former VP of Research at Cohere, Google DeepMind veteran
Sudip Roy (CTO): Former Director of Inference Computing at Cohere

Industry Significance: Addresses one of AI’s biggest outstanding challenges—continuous learning—while potentially reducing compute costs and energy consumption.

Sources: Fortune | Yahoo Finance | BetaKit

⚡ AI Infrastructure & Energy

11. Data Centers Increasingly Turn to Natural Gas for AI Power

Energy Constraint: A new analysis highlighted by Axios reveals growing reliance on natural gas for data center power as grid interconnection delays collide with AI compute demand.

Key Findings:

Developers prioritizing speed-to-power over long-term emissions goals
Gas can be built and scaled faster than waiting years for transmission upgrades
Risk of locking in infrastructure decisions lasting decades

Geographic Impact:

Regions with gas availability, pipeline capacity, and supportive regulators gaining competitive advantage
Areas with greener grids but slower interconnection processes losing out

Industry Implications:

Energy becoming the gating factor for AI expansion
May invite policy backlash and new permitting friction
Reshapes where AI clusters form globally

Sources: Tech Startups | Axios

12. Global IT Spending Projected to Reach $6.15 Trillion in 2026

Market Projection: Gartner reported that worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $6.15 trillion in 2026, driven significantly by AI infrastructure investments.

Spending Drivers:

AI infrastructure buildout across enterprises
Data center expansion for training and inference workloads
Enterprise AI adoption and automation initiatives
Cloud services scaling for AI applications

Context: Reflects continued enterprise commitment to AI transformation despite economic uncertainties and elevated interest rates.

Sources: HPCwire | Gartner

🇪🇺 European AI Infrastructure

13. EU Council Adopts Rules Enabling AI Gigafactories

Regulatory Milestone: The EU Council adopted an amendment to the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking regulation, enabling the creation of AI gigafactories across Europe.

Key Provisions:

Extends EuroHPC mandate to develop large-scale AI gigafactories
Adds dedicated quantum technologies pillar
Sets rules for funding, procurement, and public-private partnerships
Safeguards interests of startups and scale-ups

Investment Scale:

€20 billion InvestAI facility to support up to five AI gigafactories
Each facility to integrate 100,000+ advanced AI chips
76 expressions of interest received across 16 EU member states
Collective indicative investment of €230+ billion over 3-5 years

Timeline: Regulation published in Official Journal on January 19, 2026; formal call for AI gigafactory bids opened in early 2026.

Sources: EU Council | European Commission

14. Technical University of Munich Unveils EU’s First AI Factory

European Milestone: The Technical University of Munich (TUM) unveiled the European Union’s first operational AI Factory, marking a significant step in Europe’s push for AI infrastructure sovereignty.

Significance:

First of 19+ AI factories being deployed across Europe
Part of broader EuroHPC JU initiative
Supports AI research and commercial applications
Prioritizes access for AI startups and SMEs

European AI Factory Network: Through 2025-2026, at least 15 AI Factories and several Antennas are expected to become operational across Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, and additional member states.

Sources: HPCwire | European Commission

15. Artificial Labs Raises $45 Million for Insurance AI Platform

Insurtech Investment: Artificial Labs closed a $45 million Series B round to scale its AI-driven insurance underwriting and product configuration platform.

Funding Details:

Lead Investor: CommerzVentures
Participants: Move Capital Fund I, Augmentum Fintech, 6 Degrees Capital, FOM, TrueSight Ventures

Platform Capabilities:

Insurance product design and configuration
Automated underwriting rules
Faster response to regulatory and market changes
Serving specialty and commercial insurance markets

Expansion Plans:

Plans to double company size over next 12 months
US market entry planned for 2026
Consolidating leadership position in London Market

Sources: Artificial Labs | Fintech Global

📊 Market Impact Analysis

The convergence of massive AI chip investments, infrastructure partnerships, and regulatory developments signals a transformative moment in the AI industry:

AI Chip Competition Intensifies:

$2B+ raised by NVIDIA alternatives (Cerebras, Positron) in single day
Intel’s GPU entry adds third major competitor to data center AI chips
AMD’s Cerebras investment signals strategic hedging against NVIDIA dominance

Infrastructure Bottlenecks Emerge:

Energy availability becoming primary constraint for AI expansion
Natural gas prioritization over renewables for speed-to-power
Global IT spending projected at $6.15T reflects infrastructure build-out scale

Industrial AI Accelerates:

NVIDIA-Dassault partnership brings AI to manufacturing, biology, engineering
“World Models” approach grounds AI in physics and industrial knowledge
Virtual companions emerging as enterprise AI interface

Regulatory Landscape Evolves:

DOJ Google appeal keeps search market restructuring possibility alive
EU AI gigafactories regulation enables €20B+ infrastructure investment
Policy uncertainty persists across major jurisdictions

Venture Capital Concentration:

Massive rounds favor proven enterprise applications (ElevenLabs, Cerebras)
Seed funding continues for novel approaches (Adaption Labs’ continuous learning)
Strategic investors (tech giants, sovereign wealth) increasingly prominent

🔮 Looking Ahead

Key Trends to Watch:

NVIDIA competitive response to Intel GPU entry and alternative chip funding
ElevenLabs IPO trajectory and multimodal AI expansion
Google antitrust appeal outcome and search market implications
EU AI gigafactory deployment and European AI sovereignty progress
Continuous learning AI commercialization (Adaption Labs and competitors)
Construction industry autonomous equipment adoption timeline

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Last Updated: February 5, 2026, 6:30 PM CST