Andreessen Horowitz raises $1.1 billion to fund AI’s physical backbone

Andreessen Horowitz has raised $1.1 billion for the Machine Age Fund, a vehicle devoted to the tangible systems that make AI work rather than the models and apps people see. The venture firm will back chips, memory, networking, storage, data centers, robotics, and AI devices—an unusually broad hardware mandate for an investor best known for software. Its thesis is that the next limit on AI progress may be physical: denser computing systems need far more electricity, cooling, and connections, while manufacturers and supply chains cannot expand as quickly. The fund does not itself create new capacity, but it is a large bet that startups can profit by remaking the equipment and facilities beneath AI.