PowerLattice, a Vancouver, Wash.-based startup aiming to reduce energy demands of AI computing, emerged from stealth mode this week and announced a $25 million Series A round.
Playground Global and Celesta Capital led the round, which brings total funding to $31 million.
AI chips are becoming so powerful that they’re using huge amounts of electricity and generating massive heat inside data centers. Data center operators are running into limits on available power and cooling capacity.
PowerLattice says its new chip component — a “power delivery chiplet” — can cut that energy use by more than half and help those chips run faster by delivering power more efficiently, directly inside the processor package.
Early silicon is already complete, and the company is providing engineering samples for next-generation GPUs, CPUs and custom accelerators. PowerLattice said the technology can be integrated into existing chip products without major architectural changes.
Founded in 2023, PowerLattice has about 20 employees and is actively sampling with a range of organizations, according to a spokesperson.
PowerLattice was founded by semiconductor veterans Peng Zou, Gang Ren and Sujith Dermal, with backgrounds spanning Qualcomm, Intel and NUVIA — a silicon startup acquired by Qualcomm in 2021. Board members include former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, now a general partner at Playground Global, and Celesta Capital’s Steve Fu.
Gelsinger spent more than three decades at Intel, more recently serving as CEO from 2021 to 2024. He previously led VMWare as CEO for more than eight years.
“AI is not constrained by capital, it’s constrained by power,,” Gelsinger said in a statement. “PowerLattice represents a dramatic breakthrough in the efficiency and scale of power delivery.”
PowerLattice is headquartered in Vancouver, Wash., near Portland, with additional operations in Chandler, Ariz.
GeekWire previously reported on PowerLattice in May.
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