A UK AI startup that is building software infrastructure that allows AI workloads to run on different chips and AI models has raised $100m in an exceptionally high-value European seed round. Callosum has raised $100m in a seed round led by European VC Atomico, with “significant participation” from European early-stage investor Plural, US VC DCVC, the UK’s Sovereign AI, along with angel investors.
It follows Callosum raising $10.25m in February this year when it came out of stealth. Founded by Cambridge neuroscientists, Callosum is propounding a counterview to the “monoculture” that believes superintelligence will come from a single “God-like” AI model running on identical chips.
It says its approach makes it “faster” and “cheaper" to solve hard, real-world problems at scale. Its approach has won the plaudits of the UK AI minister and the CEO of US chip company Cerebras, which Callosum has announced a partnership with.
Callosum is challenging the assumption that AI development and greater intelligence will come through scaling a single AI model on identical chips, a process which demands high energy and capital costs and concentrates power in the hands of the likes of Nvidia, OpenAI and Anthropic.
The startup points out that real-world problems are heterogeneous, complex and require different capabilities.
Kanishka Narayan, Minister for AI, said: "By integrating Cerebras into Callosum's platform, we're making ultra-low-latency inference available exactly where it creates the greatest impact, enabling customers to build AI systems that simply weren't practical before."
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments