Artificial intelligence chip startup Groq Inc. raised $750 million at a post-funding valuation of $6.9 billion, highlighting investor interest in companies seeking to alleviate a shortage of chips and computing power for AI workloads. The round was led by Disruptive, with “significant investment” from Blackrock Inc., Neuberger Berman Group LLC and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, as well as existing investors including Samsung Electronics Co., Cisco Systems Inc., D1 and Altimeter. Participants also included a “large US-based West Coast mutual fund,” Groq said in a statement. The company will use the funds to expand its data-center capacity, including new locations this year and next, according to Jonathan Ross, chief executive officer. Groq plans to announce its first Asia-Pacific location this year, he said. Nvidia Corp., which dominates the market for processors that train AI models, is trying to keep a large lead in the market for inference — running models once they have been developed. Startups including Groq and companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google are developing their own rival chips and in some cases selling computing services that use them.

Full report : Groq, which sells AI chips and data-center compute powered by those chips, raised $750 million led by Disruptive at a $6.9 billion post-money valuation to expand its capacity.