It's reported that an AI chip unicorn has raised 4.3 billion yuan in financing and is valued at over 43 billion yuan.

On July 30, Xin Dongxi reported that according to foreign media citing sources familiar with the matter, Groq, a US AI chip unicorn, is about to receive $600 million (approximately RMB 4.3 billion) in new financing, boosting its valuation to around $6 billion (approximately RMB 43.1 billion).

Founded in 2016 by former Google TPU founding members, Groq is renowned for its fast and efficient AI inference chips. In August last year, it raised $640 million (approximately RMB 4.6 billion) in a financing round with participation from BlackRock, Cisco, and Samsung, reaching a valuation of $2.8 billion (approximately RMB 20.5 billion).

According to sources familiar with the matter, the scale of this new round of financing exceeds Groq's initial plan, bringing the total cash flow of this AI chip startup to over $2 billion (approximately RMB 14.4 billion) and doubling its valuation.

The new round of financing is led by venture capital firm Disruptive, which has invested over $300 million (approximately RMB 2.2 billion) in the deal. The financing is still being finalized, and details may change.

According to The Information, sources revealed that Saudi Arabian AI company Humain is considering participating in this round of financing. Part of the commitments Groq has received from Saudi Arabia will come from a revenue - sharing agreement between Groq and Humain, and Humain will help Groq sell its services in Saudi Arabia.

Groq has also significantly lowered its performance expectations for investors, reducing its projected revenue for 2025 from over $2 billion (approximately RMB 14.4 billion) to $500 million (approximately RMB 3.6 billion), a reduction of over $1.5 billion (approximately RMB 10.8 billion).

The company expects that part of the lowered revenue forecast this year will be achieved in 2026.

01. This year's revenue forecast cut by over $1.5 billion

According to The Information, Groq told investors earlier this year that it expected its revenue this year to exceed $2 billion (approximately RMB 14.4 billion). However, according to documents seen by The Information, this figure provided to investors by Groq has been reduced to $500 million (approximately RMB 3.6 billion) in the past month.

When Groq expected its revenue to reach $2 billion, it was in the process of signing a $1.5 billion (approximately RMB 10.8 billion) agreement with Saudi Arabia to expand its business there. An executive at Groq initially said in an interview this month that both revenue figures were inaccurate.

According to a spokesperson for Groq, due to insufficient capacity in data centers in regions where it plans to install more chips, Groq has adjusted part of its revenue forecast to 2026. The spokesperson declined to say whether this referred to the deal with Saudi Arabia or another contract.

Different forecasts indicate that Groq may face difficulties in securing data center space when trying to win deals to sell hardware to large companies and overseas governments. This could be a troublesome sign for other chip and cloud providers seeking data center capacity to meet the growing computing needs of AI developers.

02. Revenue of $90 million last year, expected to increase to $1.2 billion next year

Groq has raised over $1 billion (approximately RMB 7.2 billion) from investors such as BlackRock and Tiger Global Management and has won customers with its efficient inference and cost - effectiveness. Financial documents show that Groq's revenue last year was $90 million (approximately RMB 600 million).

According to financial documents, Groq recently informed investors that its revenue in 2026 will increase to nearly $1.2 billion (approximately RMB 8.6 billion) and will exceed $1.9 billion (approximately RMB 13.6 billion) by 2027, mainly from direct sales of hardware to other companies.

Groq said that the $1.5 billion agreement it reached with Saudi Arabia is a commitment made by Saudi Aramco to expand Groq's business in Saudi Arabia, but it did not elaborate on the specific content of this financial commitment.

Financial documents show that Groq expects to receive nearly $470 million (approximately RMB 3.4 billion) in revenue from large partners including Saudi Arabia this year. The company expects that the total revenue from these partners will reach $320 million (approximately RMB 2.3 billion) in the next two years.

A Groq spokesperson said that the $1.5 billion commitment will be gradually fulfilled as data center facilities come into use: "Since we recognize revenue upon delivery, the specific timeline for this commitment is variable."

03. Cloud business is still in the red, expected to achieve operating profit next year

In addition to supporting customers in running AI models in data centers, Groq is investing in building a global network so that customers can quickly get answers to their queries. Recently, Groq announced its first European data center deal in Finland.

As recently as 2023, Groq had difficulty getting customers to directly purchase its AI chips, which is a common problem for startups trying to compete with Nvidia. Unlike Nvidia's chips, Groq's chips cannot be used to train new AI models from scratch. Its chips are designed to run models faster and more cheaply.

Groq has started providing cloud services for developers to run open - source models such as Meta Llama series on Groq hardware. An early demonstration widely circulated on X showed how Groq's AI chips can drive chatbots to provide responses at extremely high speeds.

To expand its cloud services, Groq acquired the startup Definitive Intelligence of entrepreneur Sunny Madra last year, bringing in Madra. Groq has appointed him to handle a growing list of functions including finance.

Groq's current cloud business is in the red. According to documents shared with investors, Groq expects the revenue of this business to exceed $40 million (approximately RMB 290 million) this year, while the expenditure will be slightly higher than $64 million (approximately RMB 460 million). It is expected that its cloud services will start to achieve operating profit next year, with revenue approaching $200 million (approximately RMB 1.4 billion) and expenditure exceeding $170 million (approximately RMB 1.2 billion).

04. Conclusion: AI chip startups face a tough battle to take market share from Nvidia

Since Groq signed the agreement with Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has also started importing AI chips from AMD and Nvidia and is vigorously promoting the construction of more data centers locally.

Driven by the AI boom, Nvidia's market value has exceeded $4 trillion. Nvidia's hardware is widely used by AI developers and is provided by all major cloud service providers. According to the financial report, Nvidia's data center revenue in the first quarter alone reached $39.1 billion (approximately RMB 280.6 billion), a year - on - year increase of 73%.

US AI chip unicorns such as Groq, Cerebras, and SambaNova Systems are facing a tough battle. They need to compete with Nvidia with their self - developed AI chips and software and persuade enterprises to use their hardware instead of Nvidia's.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Xin Dongxi", author: ZeR0, editor: Mo Ying. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.