TechCrunch Startup News Exclusive: Positron raises $230M Series B to take on Nvidia’s AI chips; plus, Apeiron Labs gets $29M to flood the oceans with autonomous underwater robots
Feb 4, 2026
A deep dive into a $230M chip funding round aimed at challenging Nvidia with lower-power inference silicon. Coverage of why sovereign investors and hyperscalers are betting on chip diversity. A shift to ocean tech: startups building small autonomous underwater robots to map subsurface waters and stream data to the cloud. Funding rounds, deployment plans and ambitious cost-cutting goals are highlighted.
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Positron Targets Inference Power Efficiency
- Positron raised $230M to scale high-speed memory chips for AI inference, backed by the Qatar Investment Authority and others.
- Their Atlas chip claims H100-level performance at under a third of the power, shifting focus toward inference hardware.
Qatar Backs Chips To Build Sovereign AI Capacity
- Qatar's sovereign wealth fund invested as part of a broader bid to build sovereign AI infrastructure and regional compute capacity.
- This aligns with Qatar's $20B AI infrastructure JV and ambitions to be an AI hub in the Middle East.
Inference Over Training Drives Demand
- Positron emphasizes inference over training, addressing demand as companies deploy models at scale.
- Their chips also excel in high-frequency and video processing beyond memory capabilities.