Etched, the AI hardware startup that designs inference clusters, recently raised a staggering $700 million at a valuation of $21 billion, doubling its value in just a month. This rapid increase in valuation is unprecedented by any standard.

The firm's co-founder and COO, Robert Wachen, revealed that Etched has developed two new components: a prefill chip and cluster-scale memory, to accelerate the inference process. These innovations promise both speed and cost-effectiveness.

Despite initial perceptions that each of its chips was custom-designed for specific AI models, Etched now states that their systems can run any frontier model, addressing early concerns about flexibility.

Investor Jane Street expressed satisfaction with early test results, citing the precision delivered by Etched's approach. Other investors include tech giants Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital.