Andreessen Horowitz has closed a $1.1B fund aimed squarely at the hardware underneath AI, a departure from the firm’s usual bet that software scales infinitely.
The Machine Age fund will back computer chips, memory, interconnects, data centers and robots – the physical layer the firm argues is now AI’s bottleneck. In a blog post announcing the fund, a16z said AI needs faster systems, cheaper high-bandwidth memory and power-efficient edge devices, plus the cooling, materials, electrical and real estate to support them.
The firm framed the buildout as both an economic and national priority, calling AI the strongest tool ever developed for solving problems.
The fund is the latest sign that top venture firms are moving capital into infrastructure rather than just applications, as AI’s compute demands outpace data center supply and chip availability.
