Recently, Resnics Technology, a leading domestic DPU chip company, announced the completion of Pre-A round of financing. This round of financing was jointly led by Lenovo Ventures and Oakseed Ventures, and followed by Reed Stone Ventures, Tingxin Capital, Oriental Fortune, and One Flag. This round of financing will further promote the layout of Resnics Technology in the field of DPU chips and smart network cards, to meet the higher requirements for data storage and network switching in emerging fields such as AI and 5G.
Resnics provides a full range of chip solutions for cloud computing and enterprise data centers, including DPU chips in next-generation smart NICs, Computational Storage (CS) and high-end networking chips.
“My goal is to build a Chinese semiconductor company with global influence. We use DPU chips as an entry point to provide a series of data processor chip solutions to meet the demand for big chips in data centers.” Said Mr. Huang Yiren, founder of Resnics Technology.
DPU stands for Data Processing Unit and is now considered the core of next-generation data centers. In the U.S., Pensando, founded by four senior engineers from Cisco Systems (Cisco Systems), with former president John Chambers as chairman, Fungible, founded by Juniper Networks CTO and co-founder, and NVIDIA are competing for this market in the United States. And there is no domestic supplier, whether it is an enterprise or Internet companies rely on the vast majority of imports.
Mr. Huang Yiren, the founder of Resnics Technology, is the co-founder and CTO of CNEX Labs (a strategic investment by Dell, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Seagate, Samsung, Micron, etc.); he has nearly 30 years of experience in chip design and graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and studied at Michigan Technological University, where he worked at Cisco Systems. Mr. Huang has nearly 30 years of experience in chip design, graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and studied at Michigan Technological University. He was responsible for the architecture and design of switch chips, SSD controllers, and smart cards at Cisco Systems, Sandforce, and Huawei’s American Research Institute, Futurewei, and has dozens of U.S. patents and inventions, including patents related to the protocols of NVMe over Ethernet, Interlaken, and so on. Mr. Huang has designed and sold more than 200 million chips worldwide, and has led the development of chips that have been successfully flowed in a single run.
Internet and enterprise data centers, are facing a huge change. In the era of AI and 5G, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Everything, and the end of Moore’s Law are driving the trend toward heterogeneous computing, which, coupled with the demands of virtualization and security, are forcing data centers to move from a CPU-centric architecture to a DPU-centric, composable disaggregated infrastructure, CDI (Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure). Infrastructure (CDI) with DPUs as the core. In the new architecture, the role of DPU is to reduce the computing power consumed by CPU in network switching, data storage, data security, virtualization, etc., and to realize a more flexible and secure data center. With its team’s innovative R&D capabilities, Resnics will be able to build world-class leading products and become the backbone of the industry.
He Zhiqiang, Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group and President of Lenovo Venture Capital Group, said: Along with the development of AI, 5G, cloud computing and other technologies, the growth of data growth has driven the growth of global arithmetic demand, which has given rise to the development of new computing ecosystem opportunities, and the deployment of DPU scale has gradually become the direction of the evolution of data centers; Resnics DPU smart card solution. DPU smart card solution accelerates the processing efficiency of enterprises in security, network, storage, AI, HPC and other business data, and effectively reduces the cost. The founder, Mr. Huang Yiren, is an industry expert in semiconductor chips and a leader in the DPU smart card industry, and the core team members have more than 20 years of related scientific research experience. We look forward to seeing more breakthroughs in new technologies, applications and directions in the new computing revolution based on DPU.
Lenovo has been deeply engaged in the field of high-performance computing for more than 20 years, with a perfect product layout and rich customer service experience, and will work closely with Resnics to provide comprehensive high-performance computing solutions for education, research, intelligent manufacturing, life sciences, meteorology and oceanography, petroleum exploration and other fields, empowering intelligent transformation of the industry to jointly promote the construction of new infrastructures.
It is understood that Lenovo Ventures has more than 20 layouts in the field of chip semiconductor, involving AI chips, GPUs, DPUs, FPGA chips, new vision processing chips, automatic driving chips, IGBT chips, 5G chips, and other directions, which are not lacking in some segments of the industry unicorns, such as Cambrian, Stowe, BYD Semiconductors, Corechip Technology, Beijing Micro Qi Li, and so on. Also in the EDA, chip manufacturing, materials and other areas of the layout, to CVC behind the industrial advantages, to help the development of China’s chip industry.
Oakseed Ventures (Oakseed Ventures) Huang Zhiwei said: “Mr. Huang Yiren is a rare domestic expert with nearly three decades of digital chip experience. Mr. Huang is an absolute authority in both the data center networking and storage fields, and in the global arena.” Mr. Huang received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the Department of Electrical and Computer Science at MIT, where he studied under Anantha Chandrakasan, a global expert in ultra-low-power digital chips and current dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, and after graduation, he served as a teaching assistant for the PhD program in Ultra-Low-Power Digital Chip Design at MIT, and then as an executive director of investments at Cisco Systems. Mr. Huang focuses on early stage investments in enterprise IT and technology, with nearly half of his investments achieving 7 to 42 times appreciation in value and 72 to 118% internal rate of return (IRR) within three to five years.
“Designing chips for enterprise data is not something to be taken lightly, and there is no way to accomplish it without ten or twenty years of experience. Chips are not software, they can’t be iterated, and if errors are found after the chip has been flowed, it can cause a lot of damage in terms of time and money. Network and storage chips are extremely complex, if the design is not good it is easy to cause a dead end. Currently the country is supporting the domestic semiconductor industry, but we have seen many teams without enough experience raising a lot of money, which is very risky. Mr. Huang’s successful product development and entrepreneurial experience over the past 30 years has cleared many investors’ concerns about risk. We are confident that the team led by Mr. Yiren Huang will not only design a reliable chip, but one that is a global leader in technology.” Huang added.
Meng Zhao, Founding Partner of Reed Stone Ventures, said, “Having personally worked at Intel in the U.S. and China for more than a decade, I am particularly familiar with the data center space. Over the years through the daily work and communication with large data center users, such as: Amazon, Facebook, Tencent, Jingdong, etc., deeply feel that with the data center architecture and customer applications continue to change, the CPU load is getting heavier and heavier, has long been overwhelmed, especially VM (virtual machine), storage, security and other tasks of the offloading of the imminent, the DPU thus came into being, and represents the future trend of technology. We are very optimistic about the development of DPU, especially in the data center field; we are even more optimistic about Mr. Huang Yiren and his team, who have senior industry background, clear strategic thinking and excellent execution. At the same time, we also believe that Reed Stone’s industrial resources can add bricks and mortar to the business development of Resnics Technology, and we hope that Resnics Technology will continue to forge ahead and develop rapidly under the leadership of Mr. Huang Yiren.” </p
Pan Tao, Semiconductor Investment Partner at Dingxin Capital, said: DPU is a necessity for the evolution of IDC infrastructure in the new era, and has a bright future. In China, local DPU chip companies are urgently needed in terms of demand definition, cyberspace security and supply chain security. TDG Capital has made systematic investment layout around “end, management, storage and calculation”, and has made advance position in the fields of sensor, optical chip, edge MCU, new storage, etc., and continues to focus on the investment opportunities under the three convergence of “software/hardware, network/storage/calculation, and IT/CT” based on data. We continue to focus on the investment opportunities under the three convergence of data-based “software/hardware, network/storage/calculation, IT/CT”, and the strategic layout of the DPU track is the centralized expression of the three convergence. We are very fortunate to see that the founding team of Resnics Technology possesses the native composite capabilities required by the three convergence, and we look forward to Resnics Technology playing a greater value in the era of CBA (Cloud Computing, Big Data, AI).
Pingping Song, Partner at Oriental Fortune, said: In today’s general trend of computing power era, DPU chip will become the third computing power chip after CPU and GPU. DPU enhances the processing capability of intelligent NICs on network protocols and network security on one hand, and on the other hand integrates and strengthens distributed storage and NVMe network storage processing capability, thus enabling the CPU to release a large amount of computing power, thus enabling the CPU to release a large amount of computing power, thus enabling the CPU to release a large amount of computing power. On the other hand, DPU integrates and strengthens the processing capability of distributed storage and NVMe network storage, thus releasing a lot of arithmetic power from CPU to other business applications, which has a huge market space in future. The fund team led by me mainly invests in hard science and technology, including information technology, high-end manufacturing and medical and health care, etc. As an investor with a lawyer’s background, we have a strong advantage in risk control and resource integration, which is not only prudent, but also brings good returns to investors and invested companies. With an international first-class core team and a deep technical and industrial background, Resnics will be able to make great achievements in the high-barrier DPU chip track in the future.
Zhang Shuliu, founding partner of Lixin Capital and general manager of Ichiban Lixin, said, “DPU technology will definitely be applied in the automotive industry in the future. With the continuous development of automobiles in the direction of intelligence and Internet connectivity, the automobile industry is undergoing a huge change, from the original hardware-defined automobiles to software-defined automobiles. We can see that the concepts and technologies of the ICT industry have gradually appeared in the car, and the car is more like a networked electronic device that can carry people around. There are more and more sensors, computing units, more and more arithmetic power and data to be processed in the automobile, DPU technology effectively improves the efficiency of data processing, and will be an indispensable part of the future automobile architecture. One Flag LIC is a platform jointly established by FAW Group and Tsinghua LIC, focusing on forward-looking technologies and opportunities for domestic substitution of core components in the automotive industry. We aspire to help high-tech startups enter and scale up in the automotive industry by relying on Tsinghua’s academic resources and FAW’s industrial resources. We believe that Resnics team has rich experience in R&D of network, storage, and computing chip products, strong technical capabilities, and forward-looking R&D capabilities. We believe that Resnics will be able to launch leading-edge chip products for the future data processing needs of the automotive industry, in addition to its data center DPU/intelligent network card products. </p
Mr. Huang Yiren, Chairman and CEO of Resnics Technology, concluded, “Thanks to the strong support from all walks of life, Resnics Technology will continue to deliver world-leading products to both domestic and international customers, and build our company into a global leader in China’s enterprise chipset market. I hope there are more like-minded enterprises and investors to walk alongside with us. “
About Us
Resnics Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. was founded in July 2020 and is headquartered in Caohejing Emerging Technology Development Zone, Shanghai, China. The technical team consists of core professional R&D personnel in the fields of networking, switching and storage at home and abroad, with deep technical strength in the fields of networking, switching, storage and high performance CPU.
The company is committed to providing leading storage and network data processor chip solutions for the communications and Internet industries. The company aims to become a high-tech innovative company with international leading technology, leading the industry with innovation, and participating in the development of industry standards.