Cerebras Systems, a specialist in artificial intelligence chips, raised $1bn in a funding round announced on Wednesday, taking its valuation to $23.1bn. The deal marks a near tripling of its value in just over four months, after a comparable raise in September when the company was valued at $8.1bn. The financing was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Benchmark, Coatue, AMD and the 1789 Capital fund, backed amongst others by Donald Trump Jr.

The fresh influx of capital underscores investors' continued appetite for key players in AI infrastructure, as the global race for computing capacity accelerates. Cerebras' technology, built around wafer-scale chips designed for training and inference of large AI models, is drawing growing interest from strategic customers such as OpenAI, with which it recently signed a commercial agreement. The California start-up is now seen as a credible alternative to Nvidia, whose dominance is pushing many players to diversify suppliers.

While Nvidia reportedly approached Cerebras about a potential acquisition, the company declined talks. The decision reinforces its positioning as an independent player in an increasingly concentrated market. The raise is also the first since Cerebras pulled its initial public offering plans in October. With private funding still abundant, the company aims to keep growing while staying off public markets, in line with many AI start-ups.