Agentic AI Workloads Driving Outsized Demand for CPU IP

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SiFive, the gold standard for RISC-V processor IP, today announced it has raised $400 million in an oversubscribed Series G financing to accelerate its high-performance data center roadmap. This equity funding round was led by Atreides Management with other A-list investors* including Apollo Global Management, NVIDIA, Point72 Turion, and T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc., alongside repeat investors Prosperity7 Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. The financing values the company at $3.65 billion and will accelerate SiFive’s RISC-V CPU and AI IP solutions for the data center.

SiFive hyperscaler collaborations will bring new RISC-V data center solutionsShare

“Hyperscale customers have made it very clear that it is time to accelerate the availability of open standard alternatives for the data center. Their consistent ask is for customizable CPU solutions in IP form, that will enable them to meaningfully differentiate their data center compute solutions,” said SiFive Chairman and CEO Patrick Little. “RISC-V is the only architecture that truly delivers on these requirements. As the industry urgently evolves toward agentic AI, SiFive is doubling down on the data center. By collaborating with our data center customers we are uniquely positioned to capture a substantial portion of the tremendous agentic AI opportunity.”

SiFive is Doubling Down on the Data Center

This financing will enable SiFive to accelerate the development of its next generation data center solutions and expand its global engineering teams to meet the needs of agentic AI workloads.

Investment focus:

• Advanced R&D: Expand the roadmap of high-performance scalar, vector and matrix RISC-V CPU, accelerator, and system IP
• Software ecosystem: Accelerate data center software development on the SiFive platform, building on existing ports of CUDA, RedHat and Ubuntu.
• Customer enablement: Close collaboration with customers and industry leaders to streamline their path to deployment, such as with NVIDIA NVLink Fusion.

The Rise of the Agentic CPU

CPUs are critical in agentic AI systems because they excel at orchestrating complex system level coordination tasks that GPUs and accelerators aren’t designed to handle efficiently. As AI evolves toward more complex agentic models, efficient CPU performance is critical to expanding compute capacity within existing power envelopes. SiFive enables this transition by replacing complex, power-hungry legacy architectures with modern RISC-V CPUs that are inherently lower power. RISC-V integrates scalar, vector, and matrix compute into a single, standards-based interface that helps customers scale rapidly, significantly accelerating hardware development to match the speed of AI innovation.

“For decades, proprietary ISAs have constrained how the world’s most sophisticated chip designers build and differentiate their silicon. SiFive is breaking that paradigm – unleashing the full potential of RISC-V’s open standard exactly when the industry needs it most,” said Gavin Baker, Managing Partner and CIO of lead investor Atreides Management. “As agentic AI redefines the role of the CPU in AI data centers, SiFive’s RISC-V platform delivers the performance, power efficiency, and architectural freedom that hyperscalers are demanding. We believe SiFive is uniquely positioned to be the long-term winner in this shift.”

“The CPU is suddenly exciting again, especially for applications in the data center. SiFive spotted this trend early and is well-positioned to benefit as the industry evolves,” said Dan Newman, CEO and Chief Analyst, The Futurum Group. “While legacy architectures are the current incumbents, we are seeing major chip and hyperscale companies envision a future with RISC-V in the data center. This $400 million investment round signals a pivotal shift toward RISC-V as a primary contender for high-performance computing, offering a flexible, efficient alternative to legacy architectures and bringing the strength of a global ecosystem to drive new solutions.”

Architecting the Future of Open Compute

RISC-V was created by our founders to be similar to other open standards, driven and continually improved by collaboration and cross pollination across a broad community of innovators. This ensures choice and flexibility for customers, and ultimately benefits consumers.

Dave Altavilla, Principal Analyst, HotTech Vision and Analysis said, “The rapid scale and accelerating pace of AI workloads are exposing the limitations of legacy CPU architectures that weren’t originally built with modern AI performance-per-watt requirements in mind. SiFive’s latest funding round suggests the industry’s historical posture around RISC-V is starting to shift. We’re now seeing more direct engagement, with hyperscalers, silicon vendors, and ecosystem partners working with SiFive to develop highly customizable CPU IP. If that momentum continues, and SiFive delivers on its ambitions, they have a clear path to participate in what could become a large $100 billion-plus market opportunity for next-generation AI and agentic data center infrastructure.”

About SiFive

As the pioneers who founded RISC-V, SiFive is transforming the future of computing by bringing the power and flexibility of RISC-V to the world. SiFive’s market-leading IP provides the blueprint for high-performance, customizable, and energy-efficient processor cores across the entire computing spectrum, from the intelligent edge to the most advanced AI data centers. SiFive achieved record growth in 2025 and its IP is featured in more than 500 designs, with over 10 billion cores shipped to date, SiFive is the trusted IP partner for the world’s most innovative technology companies.

*commitments may include investments made by funds and accounts managed by the firms

Contacts

Media Contact:
SiFive Corporate Communications
David.miller@sifive.com

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