Graphcore

Company research

Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals

Updated Aug 5, 2026

Overview

Graphcore is a Bristol-founded AI-semiconductor company, now a wholly owned SoftBank subsidiary, developing a complete AI-compute stack spanning specialized silicon, systems and software for machine-learning training and inference. It was once positioned as a European challenger to Nvidia and is now being expanded within SoftBank’s AI and semiconductor ecosystem.

Primary product

Colossus Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs), including the MK2 GC200, IPU-M2000/IPU-POD systems, and the Poplar SDK/software stack.

Founded

2016

Headquarters

Bristol, United Kingdom

Team size

501-1000

Work style

Hybrid

Industry

Semiconductor manufacturing

Sub-industry

AI accelerators and machine-learning computing infrastructure

Offices

Bristol, United Kingdom (HQ)

London, United Kingdom

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Austin, United States

Milpitas, United States

Bengaluru, India

Gdańsk, Poland

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan

Business model

Sale of IPU processors, accelerator cards and IPU systems

Enterprise AI-compute infrastructure

Cloud-based AI compute / hosted IPU services

Software and SDK ecosystem supporting IPU development

Strategic technology collaboration within SoftBank’s AI ecosystem

Funding

Stage

Acquired / SoftBank-owned, with post-acquisition corporate funding

Total raised

$1.1B

Latest round

SoftBank corporate/private-equity funding · Apr 2026

Latest amount

$457M

SoftBank corporate/private-equity funding

Apr 2026 · SoftBank Group

$457M

SoftBank acquisition

Jul 2024 · SoftBank Group

Series E

Dec 2020 · Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board

$222M

Series D2

Feb 2020

$150M

Series D

Dec 2018

$200M

Series C

Nov 2017 · Sequoia Capital

$50M

Series B

Jul 2017 · Atomico

$30M

Series A

Oct 2016 · Bosch Ventures

$32M

People & investors

Leadership

Nigel Toon

Co-founder and Executive Chairman

Marcus McElroy

General Manager

Nick Bishop

Chief Financial Officer

Sally Doherty

Chief Marketing Officer

John Walsh

Chief Operating Officer

Helen Byrne

VP, AI Technology

Rami Sinno

SVP, Systems

Founders

Simon Knowles

Co-founder and former CTO

Investors

Work & culture

Public careers materials emphasize intellectually curious engineering, shared interests and activities, work-life balance, trust and responsibility, continuous learning, and inclusive collaboration across silicon, hardware and software teams.

Work style

Hybrid

Compensation

Public evidence indicates formal reward and progression reviews and legally compliant compensation, but no reliable company-wide salary ranges were identified. Some external job-market tracking suggests compensation transparency is limited.

Benefits

Private medical insurance

Dental cover and health cash plan

Mental-wellbeing support

Gym membership discount

Pension matched up to 5% (UK)

Cycle-to-work and travel-to-work schemes

Flexible working hours

Generous parental leave

Unlimited annual leave

Personal development plans

Management-development programs

Education and training allowances

O’Reilly online learning

Free snacks, drinks and coffee

Product & market

Pricing

No public standard price list identified; hardware appears enterprise/quote-based, while cloud access is capacity- and usage-oriented.

Differentiators

—Purpose-built IPU architecture rather than a GPU-derived design
—Very high parallelism and distributed on-chip memory
—Co-designed Poplar compiler and software stack
—IPU-Fabric and IPU-POD scale-out systems
—Open-source PopLibs, PopART and TensorFlow-for-IPU components
—End-to-end ownership of silicon, systems and AI software

Technology

Colossus MK1/MK2 IPU

GC200 processor

IPU-M2000

IPU-POD and IPU-Fabric

Poplar SDK

PopLibs

PopART

TensorFlow for IPU

PyTorch integration

C++

Python

CMake

Graph compiler

In-Processor-Memory

TSMC 7nm

Customers

Microsoft Azure

Dell Technologies

Citadel Securities

Early-access AI/ML and research customers

Competitors

Nvidia

AMD

Intel Habana

Google TPU

Cerebras Systems

d-Matrix

Tenstorrent

Scale & contact

Estimated revenue

Approximately $2.7M-$10M annually; the $2.7M figure is a reported 2022 revenue figure, not a current audited estimate.

Signals & risks

Acquisition

Jul 2024

SoftBank acquired Graphcore for undisclosed terms; Graphcore became a wholly owned subsidiary. The company retained its name and Bristol headquarters.

Source

Layoff

Jan 2024

Reuters reported that Graphcore had cut headcount by about one-fifth to 494 employees before the acquisition.

Source

Shutdown

Jan 2024

Operations in Norway, Japan and South Korea were reported closed amid restructuring and financial pressure.

Source

Other

Reported 2022 revenue fell 46% to approximately $2.7m and pre-tax losses reached about $204.6m; filings raised going-concern concerns without fresh funding.

Source

Latest news

Graphcore’s losses grow; AI chip company seeks new funding to survive

Data Center Dynamics · Jul 2026

Reported historical losses, revenue decline, headcount reduction and closure of several country operations.

SoftBank invests $457M in Graphcore AI chips

CNBC · May 2026

Companies House filings indicated a $457m SoftBank injection into Graphcore, following the 2024 acquisition.

Japan’s SoftBank acquires British AI chipmaker Graphcore

Reuters · Jul 2024

Covered the undisclosed acquisition, restructuring context and Graphcore’s continuing Bristol base.

Graphcore joins SoftBank Group to build next-generation AI compute

Graphcore · Jul 2024

Company announcement describing the acquisition, SoftBank ownership and strategic AI-compute mission.

SoftBank acquires UK AI chipmaker Graphcore

TechCrunch · Jul 2024

Reported the acquisition terms were undisclosed and described Graphcore’s prior valuation, funding and commercial challenges.

Jobs and careers at Graphcore

174 jobs at Graphcore

Data Engineer

On-site

Data Analytics

Bristol, UK

1d ago

On-site

Full-time