# Etched

> Etched is an American semiconductor startup building Sohu, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designed to run only one thing: transformer models. By burning the transformer architecture directly into silicon, Etched claims an 8-chip Sohu server can match the throughput of 160 Nvidia H100 GPUs on Llama-70B inference. Founded in 2022 by three Harvard dropouts, the company has raised over $625M, including a recent $500M round at a reported $5B valuation.

- **Founded:** 2022
- **Headquarters:** San Jose, California, United States
- **Founders:** Gavin Uberti (Co-founder & CEO), Chris Zhu (Co-founder & CTO), Robert Wachen (Co-founder & COO)
- **Team size:** ~340
- **Products:** Sohu, Sohu Software Stack
- **Notable:** Founders accepted into the Thiel Fellowship - the first time the foundation accepted multiple founders from the same company in years., Unveiled Sohu in June 2024 as the world's first transformer-specific ASIC., Raised $625M+ in total funding within roughly three years of founding.

## Products & services

- **Sohu** — A transformer-only ASIC fabricated on TSMC's 4nm process. Includes 144GB HBM3 per chip. Etched claims one 8xSohu server delivers over 500,000 tokens/sec on Llama-70B - the workload of roughly 160 Nvidia H100s.
- **Sohu Software Stack** — An open-source inference stack designed specifically for Sohu, with first-class support for popular transformer models and frameworks.

## Achievements

- Founders accepted into the Thiel Fellowship - the first time the foundation accepted multiple founders from the same company in years.
- Unveiled Sohu in June 2024 as the world's first transformer-specific ASIC.
- Raised $625M+ in total funding within roughly three years of founding.
- Reached a reported $5B valuation in early 2026.

## Latest updates

- **2024-06** — Announced Sohu and closed $120M Series A led by Primary Venture Partners and Positive Sum.
- **2026-01** — Reported $500M Series B round at a ~$5B valuation.

## Links

- Website: https://www.etched.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etched-ai
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Etched

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/etched
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-19