Key Points
- Fabric Cryptography secures $33 million in Series A funding to build a novel Verifiable Processing Unit (VPU) explicitly designed for cryptographic operations.
- The startup aims to significantly improve the speed and cost-efficiency of advanced cryptographic workloads compared to existing CPUs and GPUs, with production slated to begin later this year.
Silicon Valley Startup Unveils Plans for Cryptography-Specific Chip
Fabric Cryptography, a Silicon Valley-based hardware startup, has successfully raised $33 million in a Series A funding round to develop a groundbreaking processing unit tailored for cryptography. The round was co-led by Blockchain Capital and 1kx, with participation from industry leaders, including Offchain Labs, Polygon, and Matter Labs. This latest investment follows a $6 million seed round led by Metaplanet, bringing the company’s total funding to $39 million.
Founded by MIT and Stanford dropouts Michael Gao and Tina Ju and hardware industry veterans such as Sagar Reddy, Fabric Cryptography is poised to revolutionize the cryptography landscape with its innovative Verifiable Processing Unit (VPU).
The VPU: A Game-Changer in Cryptographic Computing
At the heart of Fabric’s ambitious project is the VPU, described as the first custom silicon chip utilizing an instruction set architecture specific to cryptography. This novel approach allows any cryptographic algorithm to be broken down into its fundamental mathematical components, natively accelerated and supported by the chip.
Dr. Wei Dai, a cryptographer and research partner at 1kx, highlighted the VPU’s unique selling points: “What sets the VPU apart is its unique combination of programmability, flexibility, and performance. Unlike other fixed-function chips common in cryptography, the VPU is future-proof—it can adapt to new cryptography algorithms as they are developed and productized.”
The company claims that the VPU will “drastically improve the speed and cost of running advanced cryptographic workloads” compared to currently available CPUs and GPUs. This advancement could have far-reaching implications for various sectors relying on cryptography, from blockchain technologies to secure communications.
Bridging the Gap in Cryptographic Computing
Michael Gao, co-founder and CEO of Fabric Cryptography, emphasized the need for specialized hardware in the cryptography space: “There exists a whole world of advanced cryptographic algorithms that go beyond protecting our data and can begin to guarantee trust if we can run them efficiently. Billions of dollars have been poured into better AI chips of all kinds. Still, researchers and industry projects in cryptography have had to settle with CPUs or GPUs, which were never made for the kind of intensive math advanced cryptography uses.”
The startup boasts a team of over 50 AI hardware and software engineers and cryptographers, drawing talent from industry giants such as Nvidia, Google, Amazon, Groq, and Cerebras. Leveraging hardware-software codesign techniques currently employed in AI hardware development, Fabric Cryptography aims to create a processing unit that does for cryptography what Nvidia’s GPUs have done for AI.
Looking Ahead: Production and Market Potential
With the new funding secured, Fabric Cryptography is set to commence production of the VPU chips later this year. The company has already reported tens of millions of dollars in pre-orders, indicating strong market interest in their innovative technology.
In addition to chip development, the funds will be used to scale the company’s software and cryptography teams. These expanded teams will focus on developing additional software and cloud infrastructure to support the growing market demand and make the technology more accessible to developers.
As the digital world grapples with increasing security challenges and the need for more efficient cryptographic solutions, Fabric Cryptography’s VPU could mark a significant milestone in the evolution of cryptographic computing technology.
