Graphcore
Bristol, United Kingdom · StartupGraphcore is a Bristol-based semiconductor company founded in 2016 that designed the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), a processor architecture built from the ground up for machine learning and AI workloads. The company raised over $700 million from investors including Sequoia Capital, BMW, Microsoft, and Samsung, reaching a valuation above $2.5 billion. Graphcore developed both hardware and a Poplar software stack to compete with NVIDIA in the AI accelerator market. Its IPU technology represented one of Europe's most ambitious attempts to build a homegrown AI chip ecosystem.