Samsung Backs Dutch Chip Startup Euclyd in $231M Round Aimed at Nvidia
Samsung has joined investors backing Dutch chip designer Euclyd, which raised $231 million and plans to sell AI inference systems and license chip IP. Its first commercial hardware is not expected until 2028.
The round, described as a Series A, totaled €200 million and was co-led by Somerset Capital Partners, the Scaleup Europe Fund and Innovation Industries, alongside Samsung. Euclyd Chief Executive Bernardo Kastrup told CNBC in an interview cited by TechRadar that the capital would support two separate lines of business. One involves selling physical hardware and rack systems directly to enterprises that want to run their own AI inference securely on-site. The other involves licensing the underlying intellectual property to companies that want to build their own chips using Euclyd's designs.
Founded in 2024, Euclyd is developing a chip system built around a different architecture from conventional graphics processors, covering both the processor and memory layers. Nvidia's GPUs were originally built for video games but became central to AI training and inference, pushing the company to become the world's most valuable. That dominance now covers the market for the highest-performing chips available today, though rivals are emerging quickly.
“AI is becoming a foundation of economic growth, scientific discovery and national competitiveness, but its potential will remain constrained unless we fundamentally change the infrastructure beneath it,” Kastrup said.
Kastrup said Samsung's contribution extends beyond the money it committed to the round. “Samsung can help us in more ways than money. They are one of the biggest memory manufacturers in the world,” he said. “They do a lot of engineering, they know a lot about systems, they know the supply chain, they have a huge network.”
Although Euclyd expects to begin shipping its chips in two years, the company plans to serve thousands of enterprise customers by 2030. Its systems remain unproven at any meaningful commercial scale so far, leaving real-world performance an open question.
Several major technology firms are pursuing similar paths away from dependence on Nvidia's processors for AI workloads. OpenAI announced in August that its first in-house AI chip, named Jalapeño, delivered industry-leading speed and efficiency. Google, Amazon Web Services and Meta are each developing their own chips for internal AI use as well. Whether a small Dutch startup with no shipped product can meaningfully dent Nvidia's position remains uncertain given the scale involved.