Semiconductor startup Positron has secured $230 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned exclusively. The outfit plans to use the capital to accelerate the deployment of its high-speed memory chips, a critical component for chips used for AI workloads, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Investors in the round include the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which is particularly focused on building AI infrastructure, the sources said.

The Reno-based startup’s Series B comes as hyperscalers and AI companies push to reduce their reliance on longtime leader Nvidia. These companies include OpenAI, which, despite being one of Nvidia’s largest and most important customers, is IS reported has been dissatisfied with some of the company’s latest AI chips and has been looking for alternatives since last year.

Meanwhile, Qatar, through the QIA, is facilitating a broader push towards so-called “sovereign” AI infrastructure – a priority repeatedly highlighted at the Web Summit Qatar in Doha this week. Several sources told TechCrunch that the country sees computing capacity as critical to remaining competitive on the global economic stage, and has positioned itself as a leading AI service hub in the Middle East, fueling the interest of startups like Positron.

The strategy has already been shaped by major commitments, including a $20 billion AI infrastructure joint venture with Brookfield Asset Management which was announced in September.

Positron’s fundraising brings the three-year startup’s total capital raised to over $300 million. The startup previously raised $75 million last year from investors including Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, DFJ Growth, Flume Ventures and Resilience Reserve.

The company claims that its first-generation chip, the Atlas, made in Arizona, can match the performance of Nvidia’s H100 GPU with less than a third of the power. Positron is focused on inference – the computation required to run AI models for real-world applications – rather than training large language models, positioning the company as demand for inference hardware increases as businesses increasingly shift focus from building large models to deploying them at scale.

Sources told TechCrunch that beyond its memory capabilities, Positron’s chips also perform well in high-frequency and video-processing workloads.

TechCrunch has reached out to Positron for more information.