Cornelis Expands into Scale-Up Networking with Active Compute Fabric, $205M in Funding, and Qualcomm Collaboration

Summary:

• Cornelis introduces Active Compute Fabric, an open architecture for scale-up and scale-out networking with programmable compute built into the fabric
• Qualcomm Technologies joined Cornelis at AI Infra Summit to share its perspective on the role of networking in efficient AI infrastructure
• Cornelis has raised $205 million in funding to advance its next generation of scale-up and scale-out networking products

Cornelis, a provider of high-performance networking solutions, introduced Active Compute Fabric, an open architecture spanning scale-up and scale-out networking with programmable compute built into the fabric.The architecture marks the company’s entry into scale-up networking and extends technology already powering AI and HPC workloads in hundreds of data centers.

Cornelis also announced $205 million in funding to support its expansion and bring its next generation of products to market.

“AI infrastructure is reaching a point where faster endpoints alone are not enough. The fabric has to become an active part of the compute system,” said Lisa Spelman, CEO, Cornelis. “Customers want complete rack-scale solutions without being locked into a single vendor or architecture. We see a significant opportunity for Cornelis to deliver that choice with an open approach built for the demands of AI infrastructure.”

Making the fabric part of the compute system
As AI models and clusters grow, communication overhead and synchronization can leave expensive accelerators underutilized. While compute, storage, and memory have become more workload-aware, networking has largely remained focused on moving data between endpoints.

Active Compute Fabric moves beyond simply transporting data by combining lossless transport, in-fabric acceleration, and programmable compute. The architecture allows the network to operate on data as it moves through the system, adapt to changing workloads, offload collective operations, and take on new functions as AI algorithms and software evolve. The result is higher utilization of the accelerators customers already own, since work that would otherwise stall the GPU runs inside the fabric. The potential for savings is significant. In a 100,000-GPU system, Cornelis modeling of public data shows that roughly half of all GPU hours are spent waiting for data, worth about $1.68 billion a year in wasted capacity and 500 GWh of power, enough to supply nearly 48,000 US homes. Active Compute Fabric uses open industry standards, including UALink and ESUN for scale-up and Ultra Ethernet specs for scale-out, and supports a broad range of accelerators.

Qualcomm Technologies joins Cornelis at AI Infra Summit
Cornelis and Qualcomm Technologies share a common view of the challenge facing AI infrastructure: passive fabrics that only move data leave accelerators underutilized, and that inefficiency shows up directly in the economics of inference. As rack-scale AI systems grow, both companies see the network becoming a first-order design decision rather than an afterthought.

“As AI systems continue to scale, moving data efficiently across the rack becomes just as important as the compute itself,” Tony Pialis, EVP and GM, data center, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Improving utilization and AI economics will require a more integrated approach across compute, memory, and networking, and Cornelis’ vision for an open, programmable fabric aligns with that industry direction. Giving customers more choice and flexibility across the infrastructure stack will be critical as AI moves toward rack-scale architecture.”

Pialis will join Spelman during her keynote at AI Infra Summit to share Qualcomm Technologies’ perspective on the role of the network in efficient AI infrastructure. 

$205 million in funding backs next generation
Cornelis also announced $205 million in funding to expand into scale-up networking and bring its next generation of products to market. The funding is supporting the company’s efforts to scale production, deepen customer partnerships, and accelerate its go-to-market plans.

“Open-standard scale-up and scale-out networking for AI represents more than $55 billion of opportunity by 2030, and we believe the network will decide how much of the total AI build-out delivers real return,” said Joel Whitley, partner, IAG Capital Partners. “What gives us confidence in Cornelis is the combination of a differentiated vision and a team that has demonstrated it can execute. The company has brought multiple gens of technology to market and is well positioned to capitalize on the next phase of growth in AI infrastructure.”

CN5000 is shipping today, while CN6000 is sampling with customers ahead of expanded availability expected in Q4 2026. Cornelis also offered a first look at its next generation scale-up and scale-out roadmap at AI Infra Summit.