UAE’s Mastiska Raises $10M to Develop Sovereign AI Chips

Abu Dhabi, UAE: UAE-based Mastiska, a fast-growing startup, has successfully closed a $10 million Seed funding round, backed mainly by sovereign wealth funds from GCC countries, to accelerate the development of sovereign AI chips and data-center-class inference accelerators.

The funding will enable Mastiska to manufacture sovereign chips in the UAE using open-source technologies, alongside the launch of commercial-grade custom FPGA cards serving as AI processing accelerators. The startup focuses on sovereign clients in the GCC, South Asia, BRICS countries, and emerging global South markets, deliberately avoiding direct competition with the US and China in the AI chip sector.

Founded in 2024 by CEO Suresh Sugumar, Mastiska specializes in sovereign AI hardware, combining model development teams in Abu Dhabi with VLSI engineering teams in India. Sovereign clients will have full access to audit the chip designs, ensuring top-tier cybersecurity standards.

The company’s first commercial products are ready-to-deploy FPGA cards for AI inference in data centers, while its model teams are developing brain-inspired architectures, including modified transformer designs to improve efficiency and performance.

CEO Suresh Sugumar stated:
“I want to change the status quo between the US and China. We are focusing on the sovereign market here. Sovereign clients have full access to audit the designs for cybersecurity assurance.”