Who's who · Chips & compute
Groq
AI inference cloud company that created the LPU chip, now licensed to NVIDIA
At a glance
- Founded
- 2016
- Based in
- San Francisco, United States
- People
- Adam Winter, Chief executive; Alex Davis, Executive chairman
- Known for
- GroqCloud, LPU
- Funding
- Private; $3.5B valuation in $350M Series A announced Aug 2026, subject to closing
- Data centres
- 13 (Aug 2026)
- Capacity
- 54 MW, targeting 200 MW+ in 2027
- Website
- https://groq.com
Groq runs GroqCloud, a cloud service for fast AI inference, the work of running trained models to produce answers. More than six million developers, Fortune 500 companies and thousands of AI-native firms build on it. Groq operates 13 data centres across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific with 54 megawatts of capacity, and expects to pass 200 megawatts in 2027.
Groq was founded in 2016 by Jonathan Ross and built its own inference chip, the Language Processing Unit (LPU). In December 2025 it signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with NVIDIA for its inference technology. Ross, president Sunny Madra and other staff joined NVIDIA, and Groq continued as an independent company running GroqCloud. Adam Winter is now chief executive and Alex Davis, chief executive of Disruptive, is executive chairman.
Groq joined the NVIDIA Cloud Partner programme in August 2026, which certifies it to run NVIDIA systems, and plans to add NVIDIA hardware to its data centres alongside its LPUs. It raised $650 million in June 2026 and announced a $350 million Series A in August 2026 at a $3.5 billion valuation, led by Disruptive with planned participation from NVIDIA.
Sources
- Groq, Groq and Nvidia enter non-exclusive inference technology licensing agreement, 2025-12-24
- Groq, Groq becomes an NVIDIA Cloud Partner, 2026-08-12
- Groq, Groq closes $350 million Series A, building the world's leading AI inference cloud, 2026-08-17
Facts last checked 2026-10-02