GPU financiers shift to inference chips in $400M deal, signaling new era for AI infrastructure

General Compute, a startup positioning itself as an inference-focused “neocloud,” has secured a credit facility of up to $400 million from Upper90 Capital Management. The twist: instead of Nvidia’s general-purpose GPUs backing the loan, the collateral is SambaNova’s SN50 inference ASICs.

From training to inference, from GPUs to ASICs

SambaNova’s SN50 chips reportedly achieve 600 to 700 tokens per second for inference tasks. General Compute has already placed $300 million in orders for these specialized chips, building out a platform optimized for autonomous AI agents that’s compatible with OpenAI APIs.

The $400 million credit line dwarfs General Compute’s earlier fundraising. The company closed a $15 million seed round in 2026, led by FUSE VC, at a $60 million post-money valuation.

Why this matters for the broader chip-lending market