Axelera AI Launches 629 TOPS Europa AIPU Chip for Edge AI Inference
Dutch startup Axelera AI has officially launched its second-generation Europa AIPU chip, delivering up to 629 TOPS of AI compute at a 45W power target. The system-on-chip features 8 dedicated AI processing cores paired with 16 RISC-V vector cores. Axelera AI claims Europa delivers six times the token throughput per watt compared to standard GPU solutions and over eight times the throughput per dollar versus top competitors. This provides a highly efficient, low-power hardware alternative for edge servers and enterprise workloads seeking to lower deployment costs. The Europa chip supports INT4, INT8, and INT16 data formats, integrating 128MB of on-chip L2 cache, 256-bit LPDDR5 memory support, and 4 PCIe Gen4 lanes. Axelera AI is offering Europa both as standalone silicon and as PCIe add-in cards.
## BACKGROUND
AI inference requires high throughput for running trained models, but traditional GPUs often consume substantial energy moving data between memory and processing units. Axelera AI utilizes a Digital In-Memory Compute (D-IMC) architecture to execute matrix calculations directly within memory, dramatically improving power efficiency. Additionally, incorporating open-source RISC-V instruction set cores provides flexible programmability alongside hardware-accelerated neural network operations.