US startup Akash System has signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum with the US Department of Commerce for $18.2 million in direct financing and $50 million in tax incentives under the CHIPS Act. The funds will be used to increase the production of diamond-cooled semiconductors, Tom's Hardware reports.
Akash System does not go into details about how it uses diamond cooling for its chips, but the startup claims that its technology helps to reduce the temperature of processors by 10-20 °C.
Akash System fuses synthetic diamond with conductive materials, such as gallium nitride (GaN), to use it as a semiconductor. For this process, they first buy GPUs from a supplier and then mount it on their own GaN board on a diamond. In the long run, the startup can produce its own synthetic diamond wafers and later use them in chips from manufacturers such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm.
Such chips can be used for training artificial intelligence, in data centers, as well as for space and military applications. According to Akash System, this technology can save data centers millions of dollars in cooling costs while avoiding significant thermal throttling of processors. The startup also claims that this technology will help reduce temperatures by 60% and energy consumption by 40%.
Akash System has already received $18 million from venture capitalists, but CEO Felix Edgecum says the company applied for a grant under the CHIPS Act because venture capitalists are not very supportive of semiconductor startups. The deal with the US government is not yet finalized, but it is moving toward formalization.