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Ubitium Raises $14 Million for a Universal Physical-AI Chip
German chip startup Ubitium has raised $14 million in seed funding led by Ibex Investors to develop a processor for physical AI. Its first chip demonstrated signal processing, AI inference and real-time control on one reconfigurable array;
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
Ubitium announced $14 million in new seed funding on October 13, saying its first silicon has demonstrated signal processing, AI inference and real-time control on a single processor architecture. The Düsseldorf-based startup says it is developing a reconfigurable RISC-V chip for machines that operate in the physical world, including drones, robots and industrial equipment. Ibex Investors led the round, which brings the company’s total seed funding to $18 million.
One chip for sensing, inference and control
Ubitium’s pitch targets a familiar design problem in autonomous machines: developers often distribute sensing, AI inference and control across separate processors. The company argues that the arrangement adds data transfers and software complexity, while making it harder to adapt computing resources as a machine’s workload changes. Its proposed alternative is a programmable array that can allocate resources across those tasks at runtime.
“Physical AI machines bring a whole new set of computing challenges, and the inference isn’t the hardest one,” said Hyun Shin Cho, Ubitium’s CEO and co-founder. “Sensing the real world and controlling the machine in it are just as hard, and today those still run on separate chips.” Cho said the new funding would help turn the demonstrated architecture into a product.
UB108 provides an early silicon test
The company identifies its first chip as the UB108, a device with 256 processing elements manufactured on Samsung’s 8-nanometer process. Ubitium says the chip ran signal processing, AI inference and real-time control on the same reconfigurable array. The announcement does not give performance benchmarks, power measurements or comparisons with competing processors, so the stated demonstration establishes the company’s reported functional milestone rather than a measured advantage over existing designs.
Ubitium was founded in 2024 by Cho and CTO Martin Vorbach. The company says its team has experience from Intel, Nvidia, Apple and Texas Instruments, and that it holds 17 granted patents covering its core technology, with additional applications pending. Those credentials describe the team and its intellectual-property position; they do not by themselves establish how the chip will perform in customer systems.
UB410 evaluation units are planned for 2027
The next step is the UB410, a commercial processor planned with 4,096 processing elements. Ubitium says it plans to tape out the chip and deliver evaluation units in 2027. Initial customers are working on radar and audio systems, which the company describes as applications where demanding signal processing and AI can run together on one processor.
The company also names autonomous systems, including drones, as target applications for a complete perception-to-control workload. Florian Seibel, co-founder and co-CEO of Quantum Systems, invested personally in the round, alongside Ibex Investors, OpenOcean and existing backers KBC Focus Fund, Runa Capital and Inflection. Seibel said autonomous machines need to process their surroundings and make decisions onboard, within limits on power and weight.
Funding moves the claim toward a product
Ubitium’s announcement pairs a working first chip with a larger commercial design still on its roadmap. The distinction matters: the UB108 demonstration is a reported engineering result, while the UB410 remains a planned processor with evaluation units targeted for next year. The $14 million gives the company additional capital to pursue that development, but the release does not disclose a production schedule, chip pricing or customer names.
For now, the concrete milestone is Ubitium’s claim that its 256-element UB108 runs three kinds of computing work on one array. The next public test will be whether the planned 4,096-element UB410 reaches evaluation units in 2027 and how it performs in the radar and audio systems Ubitium says early customers are building.