Although Etched, the up-and-coming AI chip startup, has only been in the limelight for a couple of months, the company has already attracted investment offers worth double or more than its last valuation of $21 billion. Sources familiar with the company report that current bids range from $40 billion from top-tier investors to $50 billion from lesser-known backers. This latest funding round may give Etched a runway of up to 3.5 years, provided it secures near the amount of its last round.

With a four-year history, Etched has shown promise in challenging tech giant Nvidia. It boasts a customer base that includes the quant trading firm Jane Street, which has already taken delivery of an early system, and has secured $1 billion in customer orders. The startup’s success is partly attributed to its proprietary chips, which can process more tokens faster and at a lower cost than Nvidia’s, making them attractive to customers like Jane Street, where speed can translate to significant profits.

Etched’s engineering team is also a draw, with 15% of its 400-person workforce having previously worked at Nvidia. The company has even established a 10-megawatt data center in Silicon Valley and a facility in Taiwan to coordinate production near TSMC. Its founders, Gavin Uberti and Chris Zhu, met in advanced math at Harvard, while co-founder and COO Robert Wachen was their roommate before they dropped out to pursue the company. For now, Etched remains tight-lipped about the potential deals, leaving the future of the company in the realm of speculation.