Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors has acquired AI chip startup Kinara in a $307 million all-cash agreement.

NXP said the acquisition would enable it to “enhance and strengthen” its ability to provide scalable AI platforms by combining Kinara’s NPUs and AI software with NXP’s solutions portfolio.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Los Altos, California, Kinara develops programmable neural processing units (NPUs) for Edge AI applications, including multi-modal generative AI models. Prior to the acquisition, the startup had raised $54m across three funding rounds, with investors including Tiger Global Management and Silicon Motion Technology.

Kinara’s product portfolio includes the Ara-1 and Ara-2 NPUs, which the company claims are industry-leading when it comes to performance and power efficiency. The first-generation Ara-1 is capable of advanced AI inferencing at the Edge while the Ara-2 can achieve up to 40 TOPS and is optimized for achieving system-level high performance for generative AI.

“The industrial market is going through a transformation, with new innovations like generative AI helping to deliver major improvements in efficiency, sustainability, safety, and predictability, and in many instances, unlock new use cases and functionality,” said Rafael Sotomayor, executive vice president and general manager, secure connected Edge at NXP.

“Adding Kinara’s AI capabilities to our broad intelligent Edge portfolio creates a scalable platform for new classes of AI-powered systems. Together, we can help our customers simplify complexity and accelerate time to market as they create transformative AI systems.”

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2025.