AI chipmaker Groq raised $650 million in funding after Nvidia licensed its chips, validating its inference architecture.

Groq, a US-based AI chip and cloud infrastructure company, has raised $650 million in fresh funding to expand its AI inference cloud, led by investment firms Disruptive and Infinitum. The company did not disclose its latest valuation but was previously valued at $6.9 billion following a $750 million funding round in September 2025.

The financing follows a significant strategic shift at Groq, triggered by a non-exclusive licensing agreement Nvidia signed for the company's language processing unit technology approximately six months prior. As part of that transaction, Nvidia hired Groq founder and chief executive Jonathan Ross—who had previously helped design Google's Tensor Processing Unit—along with president Sunny Madra and other employees. Ross had led Groq since the company's founding in 2016.

Following Ross's departure, co-founder Doug Wightman initially assumed operational leadership before Adam Winter, a long-standing company veteran, was named chief executive officer to lead the next phase of expansion.

Under the non-exclusive licensing arrangement, Groq retained full ownership of its LPU chip intellectual property and has refocused its strategy around operating an inference cloud business. Rather than selling hardware, the company now offers access to fast, real-time AI model processing through data centers. The new capital will support scaling operations toward 200 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2027 and outfitting existing facilities with the latest inference technology, including Nvidia's new LPX system, which incorporates Groq's designs.

Groq has strengthened its executive leadership, appointing Alan Rice—formerly of xAI and Meta—as chief operating officer. Next month, Sinclair Schuller will join as chief technology officer, and Rakesh Malhotra will join as chief product officer. Both executives were previously co-founders of Nuvalence, a software engineering firm acquired by EY in 2024.