Yusur, a data processing unit (DPU) design startup, secured hundreds of millions of yuan in a Series A round from investors including Huatai Innovation Investments, Lingjun Investment, and Guoxin Creative Fund. The company will use its funds to expand the production of its K2 DPU processor and further research and development.
DPUs are a new type of integrated circuit for the post-Moore’s Law era. They leverage decentralized computer processing on the cloud. Leading chipmakers like Nvidia, Intel, Broadcom, and Marvell have been developing DPUs since 2019. In addition to semiconductor giants, a host of startups specialize in the DPU track, like Yusur.
DPUs will be present in every server in the future, according to Yan Guihai, founder and CEO of Yusur. “The market will demand more than 200 million DPUs in the next five years,” he said. Given the gap in computing power between existing CPUs and GPUs, DPUs have a vast number of potential applications, according to Huatai Innovation Investment’s general manager Jin Haibo.
Verticals within the DPU track are already emerging. For example, Intel and Broadcom focus on DPUs for switches and routers, Nvidia provides data and network security DPUs, and Marvell targets 5G base stations, Yan said.
Yusur’s technology features its independently developed kernel processing unit (KPU) which gives its chips enhanced processing flexibility and interoperability, while accelerating networks and lowering latency. Yusur’s clients include enterprises in finance, telecommunications, cloud, and data centers, and the company generates tens of millions of yuan in quarterly revenue.
“Yusur has led China’s DPU computing revolution in terms of low latency and high performance, and has been widely recognized by leading customers in the field. In the future, the market for potential applications is huge,” said Cai Meiji, chairman of Lingjun Investment. Yusur has registered more than 50 patents since its founding in 2018, and has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Mobile’s IoT business.
Read this: Baidu’s AI chip unit Kunlun becomes independent company
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content published by 36Kr. This article was originally written by Qiu Xiaofen for 36Kr.