The need for semiconductors has increased exponentially with the boom in artificial intelligence workloads. And now there is a new venture capital fund focused on funding the next generation of startups building leading edge hardware.

‍What’s happening:‍

• Venture capital fund Imec.xpand has raised €300M to invest in startups focused on accelerating innovation in semiconductors
  
• Imec.xpand is specifically focused on funding new semiconductor startups, chip makers and hardware manufacturers within Europe
  

Why it matters:‍

• Semiconductors have become critically important to the boom in artificial intelligence computing power, which has also led to a influx of new funding for data centres to host the GPUs and hardware required for cloud computing
  

Going deeper:‍

• The Imec.xpand venture fund is a spin out from Imec, one of the largest research institutions in the world focused on microelectronics
  

By the numbers:‍

• Earlier this year European policymakers passed the Chips Act, which committed €43B to in funding to rapidly accelerate the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors
  

The intrigue:‍

• The need for semiconductors has also brought a renewed focused to critical minerals such as gallium, which are needed to produce and manufacture semiconductors at scale

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