As artificial intelligence data centers expand at an unprecedented pace, energy supply, not computing power, is emerging as the primary constraint.

This growing challenge has prompted Peak XV Partners to back C2i Semiconductor, an Indian startup developing system-level power solutions aimed at reducing energy losses across large AI infrastructure.

C2i, short for control, conversion, and intelligence, has raised fifteen million dollars in a Series A funding round led by Peak XV, with participation from Yali Deeptech and TDK Ventures.

The investment brings the Bengaluru-based company’s total funding to nineteen million dollars, just two years after its founding.

Global data-center electricity consumption is accelerating sharply. Projections indicate that usage could nearly triple by the mid-2030s, driven largely by AI workloads.

A significant portion of the inefficiency occurs during internal power conversion, where electricity is stepped down multiple times before reaching GPUs, resulting in losses estimated between fifteen and twenty percent.

Founded in 2024 by a team of former Texas Instruments power executives, C2i is redesigning power delivery into a single, plug-and-play “grid-to-GPU” platform.

The company estimates its approach could reduce total energy losses by around ten percent, delivering substantial savings on power and cooling while improving GPU utilization.

Peak XV says the investment reflects the growing importance of energy economics in AI infrastructure.

The firm expects early silicon validation within months, a milestone that could quickly determine whether C2i’s integrated approach can disrupt one of the most entrenched layers of the data-center stack.

Source: TechCrunch