Retym, a US-based chipmaker with Israeli roots, has secured a $75 million Series D funding round led by James Kuklinski of Spark Capital, bringing its total raised to $180 million. Existing investors Mayfield's Navin Chaddha and Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid also participated in the round. This significant investment will fuel Retym's mission to develop innovative, AI-optimized chips that enhance data center communications and efficiency.

Retym's chips don't process AI workloads directly, unlike Nvidia GPUs. Instead, the company is working on a new "programmable coherent digital signal processing DSP" chip that enables faster internal and external communication within data centers. This technology is crucial, especially with the rapid rise of AI, which has put immense pressure on data centers to handle larger workloads, increase efficiency, and reduce latency.

The company, founded in 2021, has been quiet about its operations until now. In a blog post on Monday, Retym's CTO and co-founder Roni El-Bahar revealed that the startup aims to bring competition to the DSP market, which has historically been dominated by a handful of large semiconductor companies. El-Bahar specifically mentioned Marvell Technology, a leading player in the DSP industry with partnerships with Nvidia, Juniper Networks, and others.

Retym's innovative approach is built around its first chip, which is currently being tested and manufactured using TSMC's state-of-the-art 5 nanometer fab. This cutting-edge technology will enable Retym's chips to provide faster and more efficient data processing, ultimately reducing the latency and increasing the overall performance of data centers.

The significance of Retym's funding and technology cannot be overstated. As AI continues to transform industries, the demand for efficient and high-performance data centers will only increase. Retym's programmable DSP chips have the potential to revolutionize the way data centers operate, making them more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective. This could have far-reaching implications for various industries, from cloud computing and edge AI to 5G networks and IoT devices.

While Retym did not respond to a request for comment, the company's announcement and funding round have sent a clear signal to the industry: there's a new player in town, and it's ready to challenge the status quo. As Retym continues to develop and deploy its innovative chips, it will be interesting to see how the company's technology and business model evolve, and how it will impact the broader semiconductor and data center industries.