Prime Highlights
- Mastiska has raised $10 million in seed funding to build advanced chips in the UAE.
- The startup aims to support countries seeking secure, independent technology solutions.
Key Facts
- Most of the funding comes from major GCC sovereign wealth funds, showing strong regional backing.
- Mastiska’s first products will be custom FPGA-based PCIe cards featuring up to 96 GB HBM for data-center use.
Background
UAE-based chip startup Mastiska has raised $10 million in seed funding, mostly from major GCC sovereign wealth funds. The company plans to use the investment to build data-center-grade inference accelerators and establish a fabless chip design ecosystem within the UAE.
CEO Suresh Sugumar said the goal is to empower nations seeking technology independence as global chip regulations force countries to choose between major U.S. and Chinese suppliers. “Sovereign AI begins with sovereign silicon,” he noted, adding that the company aims to provide governments with audit-ready, secure chip designs.
Mastiska currently operates with a 40-member team split between Abu Dhabi and India. Despite the region’s limited experience in chip design, Sugumar says the focus on building local technology gives the company room to grow without facing heavy competition. Some investors have requested local office expansions, a move Sugumar welcomes as part of building regional talent.
The company’s first commercial product will be custom FPGA-based PCIe cards built on Agilex-7M technology, supporting up to 96 GB of HBM, triple the capacity typically offered. While initial performance is modest, Mastiska says these systems can reliably run models like DeepSeek-7B and will help generate early revenue as the startup progresses toward its own RISC-V-based ASIC.
The planned chip will use neuromorphic-inspired approaches and extensive parallelization. Mastiska’s software team is also developing brain-inspired models and working to ensure CUDA compatibility, reducing friction for users shifting from Nvidia GPUs.
With a roadmap targeting a full chip tape-out within the next three years, the company says early FPGA-based server sales will allow it to refine its IP and execute the complex design process without rushing.
Mastiska expects demand from governments across the GCC, South Asia, BRICS, and the Global South, regions looking to build secure and independent AI infrastructure.
