Nexthop AI Debuts From Stealth With $110 Million

<p><strong>SANTA CLARA<&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; Nexthop AI&comma; a company building the next generation of artificial intelligence &lpar;AI&rpar; infrastructure for the world’s largest cloud companies&comma; launched from stealth with &dollar;110 million in funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners&period; Additional investors include Kleiner Perkins&comma; WestBridge Capital&comma; Battery Ventures and Emergent Ventures&period; This funding will accelerate the development of Nexthop AI&&num;8217&semi;s pioneering networking solutions for cloud and hyperscale AI clusters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To facilitate the staggering scale requirements of AI training and inference&comma; hyperscalers are spending billions in evolving their GPU and networking deployments with upwards of two gigawatts of capacity annually&period; These companies also require highly optimized hardware and software infrastructure tunable for datacenter build outs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The world’s largest cloud providers need a new generation of networking capabilities to keep pace with the demands of AI workloads&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Guru Chahal&comma; partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners&period; &&num;8220&semi;Nexthop AI is filling a critical gap in this &dollar;35 billion market with its deep domain expertise&comma; pioneering technology and customized solutions&comma; positioning the company as the go-to partner for leading cloud providers&comma; seeking to seize the AI revolution&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Nexthop AI specializes in building custom networking solutions for the hyperscalers&comma; which integrate seamlessly into their optimized cloud-stack&period; This includes building networking hardware designed to each customer’s specifications&comma; a network operating system of their choice hardened by Nexthop AI&comma; along with pre-tested optical and electrical interconnects from the customer&&num;8217&semi;s diverse supply chain&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Hyperscalers need the ecosystem to innovate with them to accelerate their infrastructure deployments&comma;” said Anshul Sadana&comma; CEO of Nexthop AI&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Nexthop AI is a force-multiplier&comma; as it partners with and works as an extension of the cloud companies’ engineering teams&period; This disruptive model enables cloud companies to build the most cost and power efficient AI solutions&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;