Bitzhilu raises hundreds of millions of yuan in Series A for AI network chips
What's the deal? Beijing Bitzhilu Information Technology has closed Series A and A+ rounds totalling several hundred million yuan, the Chinese AI infrastructure startup announced in November 2026. SMIC Capital (中芟聚源) led the backing, with its arm 中芟聚源 taking the A+ round exclusively.
What's the endgame? Bitzhilu, founded in 2023, builds end-to-end systems to solve network scalability and communication efficiency for AI infrastructure. Its stated goal is scaling AI clusters to one million GPUs or AI chips. The new capital will fund development of 800GE network interface chips and commercialisation of its 400GE products.
Who's behind it? The company was founded by Guo Chuanxiong, former head of infrastructure at ByteDance's AI Lab and a former Microsoft Research researcher. He is an IEEE Fellow recognised for his work on data centre network design.
Why now? The round continues a fast fundraising streak. Bitzhilu closed an angel round in 2024 and raised US$68.8M in early 2025. Investors keep backing AI cluster networking as China's compute restrictions raise the strategic value of homegrown interconnect technology.
What could go wrong? Fundraising momentum alone does not prove deployment at scale. The real tests are whether 400GE products gain commercial traction and whether 800GE development converts into customer adoption and verifiable performance gains.
The signal: Expanding AI compute clusters are drawing capital into high-speed ethernet, network cards, and optical interconnects. Bitzhilu's pitch — a "Chinese version of Mellanox" — targets a niche dominated globally by a handful of players such as Nvidia, Broadcom, and Qualcomm, and one that matters more as China builds out AI capacity under export curbs.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: Idaho National Laboratory
