Vultr, a cloud AI startup based in West Palm Beach, Florida, raised $333 million in a new financing round co-led by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and LuminArx Capital Management. The latest financing round values Vultr at $3.5 billion. The company plans to use the proceeds of the new financing toward the continued expansion of its cloud computing capabilities and to acquire more graphics processing units (GPUs). GPUs are foundational for today’s generative AI applications. In addition to being used for AI, GPUs are also used for cryptocurrency mining.

Founded in 2014 by David Aninowsky, Vultr provides cloud infrastructure and AI solutions. Its mission is to provide seamless, high-performance cloud computing. Vultr is considered one of the largest privately-held cloud infrastructure companies in the world. The company currently has 32 cloud data center locations globally. Vultr leases GPU access to its customer through its AI cloud service.

The CEO of Vultr, J.J. Kardwell, stated: “As we continue our global expansion, LuminArx’s collaborative, innovative approach and AMD’s strategic impact enable Vultr to further accelerate growth in AI and cloud computing, creating the category-defining independent cloud infrastructure.”

Vultr’s customers include video game company Activision Blizzard and Bharti Airtel, a leading Indian telecommunications company. Vultr offers both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs to its customers, stating that different customers value different alternatives. This is in contrast to the approach taken by many other AI cloud platform providers, which often rely on a single GPU supplier.

AMD sees its investment in Vultr’s latest financing round as an opportunity for customers to experience AMD GPU’s through Vultr’s cloud computing platform. In September 2024, Vultr started offering AMD’s Instinct MI300X GPUs through its cloud computing platform. In December 2024, Vultr announced a new AMD GPU supercomputing cluster in its Chicago cloud data center region in collaboration with AMD, Juniper Networks, AI-Native Networking, and Broadcom. AMD’s goal is to become Vultr’s AI hardware provider of choice over competitors such as NVIDIA.

As AI continues to exert a growing influence on business, artificial intelligence chip manufacturers have been racing to gain an edge. While NVIDIA is generally viewed as the market leader, second-place AMD is looking for ways to compete. In August 2024, AMD announced its intent to buy ZT Systems for nearly $5 billion. ZT Systems designs and manufactures servers and other data-center equipment for AI and cloud computing. The acquisition is part of AMD’s push to expand beyond just manufacturing AI chips to getting a stronger foothold in the hardware and infrastructure that the AI chips are connected to.

NVIDIA has made similar moves to solidify its dominant position in the AI chip market. In 2023, NIVIDA invested more than $400 million in CoreWeave, a specialized cloud infrastructure provider for generative AI. Based in Roseland, New Jersey, CoreWeave has become one of the largest GPU providers for AI applications. In April 2024, NVIDIA announced its intent to acquire Israeli startup Run:ai, a provider of GPU orchestration software for generative AI.

Vultr is well-positioned to meet the growing demands for cloud GPU solutions and AI infrastructure. The additional financing from AMD and LuminArx will enable it to expand its position globally and get more market visibility.