Full-Time
ASIC Architect
Updated on 9/16/2026
Positron
51-200 employees
AI inference accelerator for Transformer models
Compensation Overview
$225k - $350k/yr
H1B Sponsorship Available
Austin, TX, USA
Hybrid
Hybrid role in Austin.
 Hardware Engineering (1) |
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- At least 15 years of experience in ASIC architecture.
- Deep expertise in artificial intelligence accelerator design and high-performance systems-on-chip.
- Hands-on experience building performance models for memory systems and interconnects.
- Strong hardware/software co-design ability.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Own architectural exploration across transformer models, mixture-of-experts models, sparse models, and long-context inference.
- Evaluate speculative decoding, continuous batching, key-value cache evolution, sub-quadratic and linear attention, and state-space models.
- Assess memory architectures, communication architectures, and interconnects for next-generation accelerators.
- Develop analytical models and build simulation frameworks to evaluate architectural tradeoffs.
- Estimate latency, throughput, bandwidth, memory and compute utilization, scaling efficiency, power, area, and cost.
- Partner with compiler, runtime, system software, firmware, ASIC engineering, and machine learning research teams to align hardware direction with workload needs.
- Develop architecture documents and define subsystem interfaces.
- Evaluate competing architectural directions and guide the future product roadmap.
- Track new large language models, reasoning models, research papers, hardware competitors, academic research, and emerging algorithms.
- Use artificial intelligence to accelerate research, performance analysis, architecture exploration, simulation generation, and documentation.
- Experience with graphics processing unit architecture.
- A solid grasp of machine learning systems, distributed inference, and large-scale serving.
- Deep knowledge of transformer internals.
- Compiler experience.
- A track record of research publications.
Positron designs and manufactures hardware for AI inference, focusing on Transformer models. Its flagship system is a high-performance, low-power accelerator for data centers and research labs, offering a direct alternative to GPUs like NVIDIA’s H100/H200. The hardware provides dedicated compute optimized for transformer inference, enabling faster results while using less energy per operation to lower total cost of ownership. Positron also offers a developer portal with API documentation to help teams integrate and deploy the hardware into their AI pipelines, and aims to help practitioners run large-scale AI inference more efficiently while reducing operating costs.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series C
Total Funding
$1.2B
Headquarters
Reno, Nevada
Founded
2023
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Positron raised $875 million on September 10, 2026, valuing it at $5 billion.
- Customers now include Oracle, Jump Trading, Parasail, and i3d.net.
- Asimov tape-out is scheduled for late 2026, with production targeted for 2H 2027.
What critics are saying
- Revenue depends on Atlas hardware adoption before Asimov ships in 2027.
- Nvidia, AMD, and custom ASIC rivals can compress Positron's pricing and margins quickly.
- A TSMC N3P tape-out failure or LPDDR5X shortage would derail Titan and threaten survival.
What makes Positron unique
- Atlas uses LPDDR5X, avoiding HBM and CoWoS bottlenecks that constrain Nvidia systems.
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure deployed 50+ Atlas racks, proving hyperscale integration by September 2026.
- Asimov targets 2,304 GB per chip and Titan exceeds 10 million tokens.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
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Paid Holidays
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6 month growth
↑ 1%1 year growth
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↓ -6%Positron AI secures $875M in series C and C-1 funding rounds. NEA, Andra Capital, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis Capital lead the investment in Positron AI's $875 million funding rounds, focusing on energy-efficient hardware and software for AI inference. AI-assisted, human-published
Liberty Global Tech Ventures invests in AI inference hardware and software company, Positron AI. * Positron AI develops hardware and software for memory-first AI inference systems * Positron joins growing portfolio of AI firms that Liberty Global has backed including Higgsfield, XBOW, Legora and ElevenLabs PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Liberty Global Tech Ventures, the technology investment arm of Liberty Global, today announced an investment in Positron AI, a leader in hardware and software for memory-first AI inference systems. Liberty Global joins a select group of investors in the oversubscribed $875 million funding round, which values the company at $5 billion. The round was co-led by NEA, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, Andra Capital, Dylan Patel's SemiAnalysis Capital and Jim Clark. Liberty Global's selection reflects the strategic value it brings through its global technology footprint and experience scaling digital platforms. Founded in 2023, Positron develops hardware and software designed specifically for AI inference, the stage at which trained AI models process and generate outputs. Its memory-first architecture is designed to lower total cost of ownership and process requests faster by addressing the memory bottlenecks that constrain AI inference. Positron's memory-first inference systems use LPDDR5X memory, avoiding constrained HBM and CoWoS supply chains, while achieving more than 90% memory bandwidth utilization. Its Atlas systems can be installed in existing data center architecture without changes to cooling systems. Bobbie Maltiel, Partner at Liberty Global Tech Ventures, said: "While AI is being adopted by consumers and enterprises at a phenomenal rate, the ability to deliver token usage at the lowest possible cost is key to the full benefits being delivered for society. The Positron team have a relentless focus on this and we are delighted to be joining them on their mission to deliver high-speed AI at the lowest possible cost to businesses and consumers." The market for inference compute, the computing power needed to run AI models rather than train them, is expected to be worth $1.3tn by 2032 driven by hyperscaler demand*. Positron already counts Oracle, Jump Trading and Parasail among its customers. Its next-generation custom silicon, Asimov, tapes out in late 2026 with production in the second half of 2027. Asimov powers Titan, a multi-terabyte-memory inference system for long-context and next-generation AI workloads. Liberty Global Tech Ventures invests in category-defining AI and technology businesses and Positron joins firms like ElevenLabs, XBOW, Legora and Higgsfield in selecting Liberty Global as a strategic investor. ABOUT LIBERTY GLOBAL Liberty Global Ltd. (Nasdaq: LBTYA, LBTYB, LBTYK) delivers long-term shareholder value through the strategic management of two complementary platforms: Liberty Telecom and Liberty Growth. Liberty Telecom is a world leader in converged broadband, video and mobile communications, providing approximately 80 million fixed and mobile connections across Europe through advanced fiber and 5G networks that empower customers and strengthen national economies. The business generates aggregate revenue of $22 billion, including approximately $18 billion from nonconsolidated joint ventures and $4 billion from consolidated operations. Liberty Growth invests in scalable businesses across the technology, media, sports and infrastructure sectors, with a portfolio of roughly 70 companies and funds valued at $3.4 billion.* Together, these platforms reflect Liberty Global's focus on operating, enabling and investing in businesses with strong strategic fit and the potential to deliver sustainable long-term returns. *As independently valued as of December 31, 2025. This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements with respect to business strategies, future growth prospects; valuation expectations and other information and statements that are not historical fact. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks and uncertainties include events that are outside of Liberty Global's control. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. Liberty Global expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. ABOUT POSITRON AI Positron AI builds hardware and software to make AI inference dramatically cheaper and more energy efficient. The company's shipping product, Atlas, is deployed at hyperscaler scale today, and its next-generation custom silicon, Asimov, tapes out in late 2026 with production in the second half of 2027. Asimov powers Titan, a multi-terabyte-memory inference system for long-context and next-generation AI workloads. Positron's energy-efficient architecture allows its systems to be deployed in air-cooled or liquid-cooled data centers at varying rack densities, without dependence on constrained HBM or CoWoS supply chains. Learn more at positron.ai. | Investor Relations | Corporate Communications | | Michael Bishop +44 20 8483 6246 | Pádraig McGarrigle +44 7474 736967 | | / | [email protected] |
AI chip startup Positron's valuation skyrockets in latest funding round. 10 Sep 2026 11:47PM Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. Sept 10: Positron AI, a startup developing chips to run AI models, said on Thursday it has raised $875 million in its latest funding round, more than quadrupling its valuation in seven months to $5 billion. The startup had raised $230 million in February at a valuation of $1.06 billion, according to data provider PitchBook. Here are some details: - The rapidly growing AI inference market, focused on running trained AI models, has become a key battleground as companies develop specialized processors to challenge Nvidia's dominance. - The financing was split into two tranches: a $375 million Series C at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation and a Series C-1 of up to $500 million led by NEA and Jim Clark, Positron said. - Proceeds will fund the final design stage of Asimov, the company's next-generation chip. The company targets production in the second half of 2027. - The company said its AI inference system, Titan, will combine four to eight Asimov chips to serve models exceeding 16 trillion parameters and context windows beyond 10 million tokens in a single node. - The round was co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, SemiAnalysis Capital and Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics. Qatar Investment Authority, Cisco Investments and Naver Ventures were among additional investors. - Positron also said it is deploying more than 50 racks of Atlas, its first-generation inference system, at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. - As part of the financing, Forest Baskett of NEA, Gavin Baker of Atreides Management, Dylan Patel, the founder of SemiAnalysis, and Thomas Jermoluk from Jim Clark Office will join Positron's board.
Positron AI raises $875 million Series C at $5 billion valuation. Cris Tolomia Positron AI raised $875 million at a $5 billion post-money valuation on Thursday, as demand for AI inference hardware continues to climb. The raise was structured in two tranches. A $375 million Series C, priced at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation, drew co-lead investments from NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, and SemiAnalysis Capital, the fund run by analyst Dylan Patel. A follow-on Series C-1 of up to $500 million was anchored by NEA and Netscape co-founder Jim Clark. Additional investors include DFJ Growth, Qatar Investment Authority, Hudson River Trading, Cisco Investments, and Naver Ventures, among others. Positron's most recent prior funding round was a $230 million raise in February that valued the company at $1 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Thursday's round values the company five times higher than that February figure. Reno, Nevada-based Positron designs inference chips built around memory capacity and bandwidth rather than raw compute. Its next-generation chip, called Asimov, pairs the company's compute architecture with between 288 GB and 2,304 GB of memory per chip using commodity LPDDR5X memory, sidestepping supply constraints around high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging. Asimov is scheduled to tape out on TSMC's N3P process at the end of 2026, with production targeted for the second half of 2027, the company said. The proceeds will fund the Asimov tapeout, the build-out of a 2-megawatt engineering data center and emulation platform, and the production ramp of Titan, a next-generation inference system that combines four to eight Asimov chips into a single node. Titan is designed to serve models beyond 16 trillion parameters and context windows beyond 10 million tokens, the company said. Positron's earlier product, the Atlas server rack, has been deployed at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, with over 50 racks now in the field. Customers using that capacity include Parasail, Jump Trading, and i3d.net. As part of the financing, Forest Baskett of NEA, Gavin Baker of Atreides Management, Thomas Jermoluk from Jim Clark Office, and Dylan Patel will join Positron's board of directors. Positron chief executive Mitesh Agrawal said in a statement that deploying Atlas at Oracle informed the design of Asimov and Titan. "Our focus now is to tape out Asimov, bring Titan to production, and scale manufacturing to meet the demand in front of us," Agrawal said in a statement.
Positron AI has raised $875 million at a $5 billion valuation to fund its next-generation AI inference hardware. The Series C round was co-led by NEA, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, Andra Capital, SemiAnalysis Capital, and Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark. The company builds memory-first inference systems designed to run AI models more efficiently than traditional approaches. Positron is deploying over 50 racks of its first-generation Atlas system at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, with customers including Jump Trading and i3d.net. The funding will support the tapeout of Asimov, Positron's next chip on TSMC's N3P process, scheduled for late 2026 with production in second-half 2027. It will also fund production of Titan, its next-generation system combining multiple Asimov chips. The architecture uses commodity LPDDR5X memory rather than constrained HBM supply chains.