SiFive, a California-based designer of open-source RISC-V processor cores, has raised $400 million in new funding, bringing its valuation to $3.65 billion. The investment round was led by existing investor SK Hynix, with participation from new backers including Ayar Labs, a silicon photonics company.
The capital injection is aimed at accelerating the adoption of RISC-V architecture in AI data centers and for "agentic AI" applications. SiFive argues that its customizable, open-standard RISC-V cores offer a more energy-efficient alternative to proprietary architectures like Arm and x86, which is critical for power-hungry AI workloads. The company plans to use the funds to expand its engineering teams and accelerate the development of high-performance RISC-V solutions tailored for data center infrastructure.
This funding round underscores the growing momentum behind RISC-V as a viable architecture for demanding compute environments. The strategic involvement of SK Hynix, a major memory chipmaker, and Ayar Labs, which specializes in optical I/O technology, points to a broader industry push to develop optimized, open hardware stacks for next-generation AI systems.