in Europe Imec.expand rotates the memory chip firmly Vertical Compute in a seed investment round worth $20.5 million.

Founded by CEO Sylvain Dubois (ex-Google) and CTO Sebastien Couet (ex-imec), today announced that it has successfully closed a seed investment of $20.5 million, or 20 million euros.

The round was led by Imec.xpand and supported by a strong investor base including Eurazeo, XAnge, Vector Gestion and imec. The funding will support Vertical Compute’s ambition to create a novel vertical integrated memory and compute technology, opening a new generation of AI applications.

Vertical Compute technology has a transformative impact, enabling next-generation applications with unparalleled efficiency and privacy. By reducing data movement and bringing big data closer to computing, the innovation ensures energy savings of up to 80%, unlocks hyper-personalized AI solutions, and eliminates the need for remote data transfer, user privacy protection.

“Memory technologies face limitations in both density and performance scaling, while processor performance continues to improve. The overwhelming data access requirements of AI workloads exacerbates this challenge, making it necessary to overcome the memory wall to create the next wave of AI innovations. We believe that going Vertical is the path to 100X gains”, says Sébastien Couet , CTO of Vertical Compute, in a statement.

Facing the Memory Wall

The rapid development of large language models and generative AI is transforming almost all industries at an unprecedented pace. However, these large-scale AI models still rely on complex cloud infrastructure and high bandwidth memories, which lead to data transfer latency, high energy consumption and sending sensitive data over long distances. server.

Edge computing can solve these issues, but inferencing large AI models on smartphones, PCs or smart home devices faces significant cost, power and scalability constraints.

The big problem is the ‘memory wall’. Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), integrated as caches in the CPU or GPU, is fast but small and expensive. Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DRAM), the main memory in computing systems, is larger but expensive and energy-consuming. The scaling of both memory technologies in density and performance is slowing down as processor speeds and market demands continue to increase, causing a significant bottleneck.

This problem is growing rapidly due to the increasing demand for AI workloads, which require large amounts of data to be easily accessible. Overcoming this memory wall is critical for improving AI inference.

Transforming with Vertical Compute’s Chiplet Technology

The convergence of large-scale AI models and edge computing calls for a revolutionary shift in the way data is processed. Vertical Compute will take advantage of this opportunity by creating chiplet-based solutions – which take a modular approach to chip design – that use a new way to store bits in a high aspect ratio. which is a vertical structure. The concept behind Vertical Compute’s core patented technology was invented by Sebastien Couet, Imec’s former Magnetic Program Director. The core innovation lies in the integration of vertical data lines on top of calculation units. It has the potential to surpass DRAM in terms of density, cost and energy, by reducing data movements from centimeters to nanometers. This promising technology, combined with an ambitious commercialization plan, led to the creation of this new semiconductor venture.

“The proliferation of data-intensive applications such as generative AI requires a powerful new method of transferring data between computer cores and memory units. Our solution is designed to overcome the fundamental limitations of scaling memory technologies by going vertical. We are committed to unlocking the full potential of large edge language models without any compromises,” said Sylvain Dubois, CEO of Vertical Compute, in a statement.

“We want to recruit the best from all over Europe, and ultimately put Europe at the forefront in terms of technology”, said Dubois.

Driving Recruitment and Development

Vertical Compute is located in Louvain-La-Neuve (BE), with main R&D offices in Leuven (BE), Grenoble (FR) and Nice (FR). The company has recruited an elite team of engineers to support its ambitious R&D goals and accelerate the development and commercialization of chiplet-based technology.

This round of seed investment underscores confidence in the leadership team’s capabilities and the disruptive potential of this game-changing technology. We could not be more excited to work with Sylvain, Sebastien and their team and to help them achieve their ambitious goals,” said Tom Vanhoutte from Imec.xpand, in a statement.

“We are confident that, with the continued support of our teams and ecosystem, Vertical Compute will be a disruptor in the semiconductor industry. The strong international investor base shows that we are not alone in this belief ,” said Patrick Vandnameele, co-COO of Imec, in a statement.

Vertical Compute was founded in 2024 to solve the memory bottleneck in computer systems.