UK Startup Callosum Announces $100M in Funding to Build Interoperable AI Compute Platform
aiinsider ·
UK startup Callosum has raised a $100 million seed round to build an interoperable AI compute platform that aims to make AI and compute-heavy workloads faster, cheaper, and more energy-efficient by enabling multiple hardware and infrastructure vendors to work together. The round, among the largest seed raises in European history, was led by Atomico with participation from Plural, DCVC, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund, marking the government fund's first named investment since its £500 million commitment. Founded by former Cambridge neuroscience researchers Danyal Akarca and Jascha Achterberg, the company applies neural network principles to computing infrastructure, arguing that AI runs best when multiple vendors operate in concert. Callosum has secured partnerships with chipmakers including Cerebras, Rebellions, Axelera AI, NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel, as well as Supermicro, Normal Computing, AWS, and Furiosa. AI model companies are not yet partners, but the founders said they would be added later, likely starting with open-source developers. Atomico framed the investment around resilience and sovereignty, noting that distributing workloads across vendors prevents any single company from controlling access to intelligence, a concern tied to national security.
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