AheadComputing, founded by former Intel CPU architects including Hyper-Threading inventor Debbie Marr, has secured $30 million in Seed2 funding to develop breakthrough RISC-V processors for AI workloads. The round, co-led by Eclipse, Toyota Ventures, and Cambium, brings the Portland-based startup's total funding to $53 million.
"CPUs are at the heart of any computing ecosystem... where are the agents running? They're running on the CPU," said CEO Debbie Marr. With 70% of data center compute demand expected to come from AI workloads by 2030, the company sees an opportunity to challenge the CPU status quo.
The founding team—Marr, Jonathan Pearce, Mark Dechene, and Srikanth Srinivasan—brings a century of combined CPU architecture experience. Marr developed Intel's Hyper-Threading on Pentium 4 and later served as chief architect for Intel Haswell and Ice Lake before leading Intel's Advanced Architecture Development Group until 2024. Initial production is planned through TSMC.