Overview
- SambaNova closed a $350 million Series E led by Vista Equity Partners and Cambium Capital, with Intel Capital joining alongside Battery Ventures and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price.
- The companies announced a planned multi-year collaboration to co-develop and co-market Xeon-centric rack-scale inference solutions, which Intel says complement its existing data-center GPU roadmap.
- SambaNova unveiled the SN50 accelerator and claims faster per-user generation speed and lower cost than Nvidia’s B200; SN50 rack systems are slated for availability in the second half of 2026.
- SoftBank was named as the first customer to deploy SN50 in AI data centers in Japan to provide low-latency inference services for regional customers.
- Reuters previously reported Intel explored acquiring SambaNova for about $1.6 billion before talks stalled, and Intel says CEO and SambaNova chairman Lip‑Bu Tan recused himself from discussions on the collaboration.