Nvidia invests $150 million in AI inference company Baseten

PANews reported on January 21 that, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, Baseten, a startup focused on artificial intelligence inference, has completed a $300 million funding round, valuing the company at $5 billion, almost double its previous valuation. The round was led by venture capital firm IVP and Alphabet's independent growth fund CapitalG, with chip giant Nvidia also participating, investing $150 million as part of the deal. This transaction highlights Nvidia's aggressive investment in startups in the field of artificial intelligence inference. As industry focus shifts from training models to large-scale operation and inference (i.e., AI models generating outputs from inputs), Nvidia is increasing its investment in related startups while continuing to invest in its own AI chip customers.