NextSilicon takes on Nvidia with Maverick-2 chip, secures tens of millions in sales
NextSilicon takes on Nvidia with Maverick-2 chip, secures tens of millions in sales
Over the last year, the company has raised an additional $100 million, reaching a valuation of $1.6 billion.
Israeli chip unicorn NextSilicon has launched a new supercomputer chip, the Maverick-2, positioned as a direct competitor to Nvidia's similar offerings. Currently, only a handful of companies operate in this field, and NextSilicon is a leading startup among them. Calcalist has learned that the company has already received orders totaling tens of millions of dollars for its new chip.
According to NextSilicon, the Maverick-2 is an Intelligent Compute Accelerator (ICA), introducing intelligent software-defined hardware acceleration that delivers real-time adaptability. This technology is designed to deliver superior performance and efficiency for HPC, AI, and vector database applications.
Founded in 2018 by Elad Raz, NextSilicon has over 300 employees in Israel, the United States, Serbia, and other locations worldwide. The company has raised a total of $303 million from investors including Amiti Ventures, Aleph, Liberty Technology VC, Playground Global, Standard Investments, StepStone, and Third Point Ventures. Over the last year, the company raised an additional $100 million, maintaining a valuation close to its previous round at $1.6 billion.
Today, supercomputers tackle the most significant challenges in research, health, finance, and energy, requiring high-performance computing and AI capabilities. They enable engineers to design space shuttles virtually, allow researchers to assess the effectiveness of experimental vaccines, and are even used to design advanced stealth aircraft. Accelerator chips drive these systems, with the focus over recent decades on GPU chips, which are now nearing the limits of their acceleration capabilities.
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The Maverick-2 chip offers accelerated supercomputer performance with the ability to expand and improve immediately as needed. Rather than accelerating all processes at once, Maverick-2 uses intelligent optimization to selectively activate areas requiring the most acceleration. This innovation delivers four times the performance of traditional GPU accelerators and over 20 times that of advanced CPU accelerators while cutting operating costs by more than 50%.
“Maverick-2 represents a first-of-its-kind solution that seamlessly combines advanced software and hardware to optimize the most complex scientific codes running on the world's largest high-performance computing systems,” said Elad Raz, Founder and CEO of NextSilicon. “As we face the growing demand for faster, more efficient applications, Maverick-2 unlocks possibilities previously deemed impossible.”
The chip industry often includes micro-inscriptions on chips, requiring great precision, with the writing size being a fraction of a hair’s width. For the Maverick-1 accelerator’s launch two years ago, Elad Raz requested the word "Genesis" be etched into each chip as a symbol of continuity and creation. For Maverick-2, the team planned a similar inscription, but they initially struggled to agree on a message. However, following the tragic events of October 7 and their impact on the company, the message "Am Yisrael Chai" (an affirmation of the continuity of the Jewish people) was chosen to honor resilience and unity. This message now appears on every Maverick-2 chip as a testament to the enduring strength of the Jewish people and the unity demonstrated by NextSilicon's employees.
Maverick-2 is currently being shipped to dozens of customers who pre-ordered it, with additional large-scale deliveries expected in early 2025 due to high demand. NextSilicon's customer base includes the U.S. Department of Energy, leading academic research institutions globally, and a variety of commercial clients in financial services, energy, manufacturing, and life sciences.
