Cornelis raises $205M to take on Nvidia with open networking fabric

Cornelis, an AI infrastructure company focused on networking technology for AI chips, announced Sept. 14 that it raised $205 million in a funding round led by IAG Capital Partners.

The company also unveiled Active Compute Fabric, a networking product designed to address wasted GPU time spent waiting for data. The fabric allows chips to process and transmit information at the same time.

Cornelis spun off from Intel in 2020 and competes with Nvidia by offering an open architecture that supports a range of GPU and accelerator hardware. While Nvidia chips can technically run on other networking fabrics, they are optimized to run on Nvidia's own software stack, making it easier for customers to use the full Nvidia GPU package. Cornelis is among a wave of AI infrastructure startups trying to erode Nvidia's market dominance.

The company has started shipping its current generation of products and is working on a next-generation version expected to launch later in 2026.