AI chip startup Fractile strikes $250M deal with Anthropic

According to Bloomberg, UK-based AI chip startup Fractile has reached a preliminary supply deal with AI company Anthropic worth about $250 million (around 1.687 billion yuan). Fractile plans to start delivering its AI ASIC inference accelerators in 2027 and may expand the deal.

Fractile's chips use an innovative 'analog in-memory computing' architecture, which makes them 25 times faster and ten times cheaper when running major AI models. This tech advantage helps the company stand out in the competitive AI chip market.

On the financial side, Fractile raised $220 million in May 2026 at a valuation of about $1 billion. Now it's seeking a new funding round at a valuation of $6.5 billion (around 43.849 billion yuan), though some of the new funding may come in at a lower valuation.