Cornelis, a provider of high-performance networking solutions for AI and high-performance computing (HPC), has raised $205 million in funding to expand its technology and bring new products to market.
The funding will support Cornelis as it expands into scale-up networking, increases production, strengthens customer partnerships and accelerates its go-to-market efforts.
The company also introduced Active Compute Fabric, an open networking architecture designed to combine scale-up and scale-out networking with programmable computing capabilities.
Cornelis says the technology can process data within the network instead of simply moving data between computing systems. This could help improve GPU utilization and reduce the time AI accelerators spend waiting for data.
“AI infrastructure is reaching a point where faster endpoints alone are not enough. The fabric has to become an active part of the compute system,” said Lisa Spelman, CEO of Cornelis. “Customers want complete rack-scale solutions without being locked into a single vendor or architecture. We see a significant opportunity for Cornelis to deliver that choice with an open approach built for the demands of AI infrastructure.”
The architecture uses industry standards including UALink, ESUN and Ultra Ethernet and is designed to support different types of AI accelerators.
“As AI systems continue to scale, moving data efficiently across the rack becomes just as important as the compute itself,” Tony Pialis, EVP and GM, Data Center, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Improving utilization and AI economics will require a more integrated approach across compute, memory, and networking, and Cornelis’ vision for an open, programmable fabric aligns with that industry direction. Giving customers more choice and flexibility across the infrastructure stack will be critical as AI moves toward rack-scale architecture.”
“Open-standard scale-up and scale-out networking for AI represents more than $55 billion of opportunity by 2030, and we believe the network will decide how much of the total AI build-out delivers real return,” said Joel Whitley, Partner at IAG Capital Partners. “What gives us confidence in Cornelis is the combination of a differentiated vision and a team that has demonstrated it can execute. The company has brought multiple generations of technology to market and is well positioned to capitalize on the next phase of growth in AI infrastructure.”
Cornelis’ CN5000 networking product is already shipping, while the CN6000 is being tested with customers with wider availability expected in Q4 2026.
The company will use the new funding to scale production, expand customer relationships, develop next-generation networking products and grow its commercial operations.
