NVIDIA Invests in AI Network Optimizer Arrcus, Boosting Hyperscale Networking

Nvidia Invests In AI Network Optimizer Arrcus - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Arrcus raises $27 million, including Nvidia investment.Funds to be used for global expansion and tech enhancement. Investors, including Nvidia Corp. NVDA, have invested about $27 million in the networking software startup Arrcus Inc. in the latest round of funding to enhance its platform for managing data traffic more efficiently. The investment round saw participation from Saudi Aramco's venture arm Prosperity7 Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, and General Catalyst, among others, Bloomberg reports. The San Jose-based company, which counts SoftBank Corp SFTBY and Target Corp TGT among its 50 clients, intends to use the funds to expand globally and enhance its technology. With the rise of artificial intelligence, the demand for robust networks connecting enterprises, data centers, and users has increased. Arrcus's software optimizes data flow to meet this demand. CEO Shekar Ayyar emphasized the growing importance of networks in the evolution of AI architecture, stating that companies are seeking smarter ways to utilize processors and hardware efficiently. Nvidia, which has become the posterchild of the AI revolution, is not only catering to the rising demand for its advanced chips but has also become a venture capital investor in firms leveraging the technology. Also Read: Google And Microsoft Provide Nvidia Chip Access To Chinese Firms Despite U.S. Restrictions: Report The chip major has invested in about three dozen startups, with investments in other companies rising sharply from $300 million a year ago to $1.55 billion at end-January. For example, Nvidia-backed AI startup Cohere is eyeing a $5 billion valuation, marking a substantial leap from its previous valuation of $2.2 billion. Cohere's competitors include OpenAI, which has Microsoft Corp MSFT as a backer and anticipates $1 billion in revenue for 2024. Arrcus collaborates with major industry players such as Broadcom Corp AVGO and Intel Corp INTC alongside Nvidia. The startup employs approximately 150 people, with a significant portion based in Bangalore. Earlier in 2023, Arrcus raised $50 million, later expanding its Series D funding round. NVIDIA stock has gained more than 153% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via T-Rex 2X Long NVIDIA Daily Target ETF NVDD and ProShares Ultra Semiconductors USD. Price Action: NVDA shares are trading higher by 2.41% at $120.83 at the last check on Thursday. Read Next: As Nvidia, Microsoft, And Google Lead AI Boom, Taiwan's Chief Telecom President Calls For 'Entirely New' Data Center Infrastructure Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Arrcus raises $30M for hyperscale networking software

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Arrcus, the hyperscale networking software and infrastructure company raised $30 million from Nvidia and others today. The San Jose, California-based company is addressing the need for distributed networking to improve the efficiency of compute infrastructure. The money for the company that makes core, edge, and multi-cloud routing and switching infrastructure came from Nvidia, Prosperity7 Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, General Catalyst, Liberty Global, Lightspeed and Clear Ventures. Arrcus has raised $154 million to date and it has 150 employees. "We are thrilled to welcome Nvidia as our latest investor and look forward to building on our collaboration. Arrcus' leading networking software coupled with Nvidia's AI infrastructure will help deliver maximum efficiency to customers from data centers as well as their edge and cloud computing environments," said Shekar Ayyar, chairman and CEO of Arrcus, in a statement. "We also extend our gratitude to Prosperity7, Hitachi Ventures, General Catalyst, and Clear Ventures for their continued support and confidence in our vision." Growing investor interest in the company comes alongside Arrcus' success with leading Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customers, and will enable the company to expand platform support, accelerate growth, and continue delivering cost-effective and transformational networking solutions to customers worldwide. It's targeting datacenter, 5G, edge and hybrid/multi-cloud environments across enterprise, cloud, and network operators. "Modern networks are evolving to address customer needs in the era of AI," said Kevin Deierling, senior vice president of networking at Nvidia, in a statement. "We're collaborating with Arrcus to provide high-performance, secure and cost-efficient data center networking for a variety of accelerated computing applications." Arrcus said its uniquely differentiated routing and switching platform, Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE), features a distributed microservices architecture that is flexible, high performance, scalable, fully programmable, modular and hybrid cloud-ready. It is deployable on various form factors, including data processing units (DPUs), merchant silicon, and compute, and enables a wide range of use cases including low-latency data center networking, modern edge deployments, telco access and transport, and hybrid multi-cloud connectivity. "Arrcus is driving an exciting disruption in networking for datacenters and AI. After leading their D round, we are now excited to join Nvidia and other investors in continuing to support their growth and platform adoption among leading customers," said Abhishek Shukla, managing director at Prosperity7 Ventures, in a statement. Arrcus' ACE networking platform, leveraging the Nvidia BlueField DPU, enables customers to efficiently offload, accelerate, and isolate compute-intensive networking applications like security and traffic engineering. With the advent of GenAI applications, this gives customers the ability to have high performance secure connectivity within the data center, while delivering higher utilization and power efficiency for compute-intensive workloads. This collaboration between Nvidia and Arrcus can help extend AI data center architectures to distributed configurations supported by modular designs such as the Nvidia MGX platform. "AI is driving the need for more flexible networking to maximize the impact of high-performance compute cycles," said Jason Hardy, CTO for AI, Hitachi Vantara, in a statement. "We are pleased to see Arrcus software working across leading industry hardware platforms for distributed datacenter networking." "Arrcus continues to push the boundaries of networking innovation with their ACE platform. Their unique approach to leveraging distributed microservices architecture and integration with leading hardware platforms enables a wide range of networking use cases from the edge to datacenters to multi-clouds, setting them apart in the industry," said Alan Weckel, analyst at 650 Group, in a statement. "This new investment further validates Arrcus' vision and capability to deliver high-performance, scalable, and cost-efficient networking solutions that meet the evolving demands of AI-driven environments."