Axelera AI

Axelera AI, founded in 2021 and headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands, builds the hardware and software platform for AI inference at the edge. The company develops AI accelerator hardware, semiconductor design and AI software tooling aimed at running inference where data is generated rather than in centralised cloud infrastructure. Its stated aim is powerful, efficient and cost-effective AI acceleration.

At the core of the stack is a Digital In-Memory Computing (D-IMC) approach combined with a RISC-V dataflow architecture. The Metis AIPU family delivers up to 214 TOPS of edge inference performance; the Europa platform targets higher-performance workloads at 629 TOPS, which the company describes as rivaling or exceeding GPUs at a fraction of the power consumption and cost. The Voyager SDK complements the silicon with more than 100 pre-optimised models, intended to make edge AI usable by developers across industries. Target verticals include industrial automation, smart cities, retail, healthcare, robotics and aerospace.

The company has raised over $450 million in equity, grants and venture debt. Its team of more than 190 experts spans 18 countries, with R&D offices in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and the United Kingdom alongside the Dutch headquarters.