Nepalese Co-Founded AI Startup ‘Architect Labs’ Secures $24 Million to Disrupt Custom Chip Market

20th June 2026, Kathmandu

In a massive milestone for global tech and a proud moment for Nepal, Architect Labs, an AI startup co-founded by 19-year-old Nepalese tech entrepreneur Aditya Subedi, has successfully raised $24 million (approx. 3.62 billion NPR) in its latest funding round.

Architect Labs Secures $24 Million

Co-founded alongside Canadian prodigy Ibrahim Hussain, the Palo Alto-based startup aims to democratize the highly complex and expensive world of semiconductor and custom AI chip design.

From Harvard and Tesla to Silicon Valley: The Founders’ Journey

The story behind Architect Labs reads like a classic Silicon Valley success story.

Aditya Subedi: Hailing from Kathmandu, Subedi completed his 10th grade at Akshara School and his 12th grade at IB Ullens School before moving to Harvard University. At Harvard, he was conducting research on using AI for code verification.

Ibrahim Hussain: A tech prodigy who left traditional schooling at age 15 to enter college, Hussain previously worked on custom chip development at industry titans Apple and Tesla.

The duo met at Stanford University while Subedi was conducting research. Recognizing a massive hardware bottleneck limiting the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence, both founders decided to drop out of their respective programs to launch Architect Labs.

Disrupting a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry: Rivals to Broadcom and Marvell

Architect Labs is building advanced AI systems specifically designed for chip design and verification.

According to Reuters, the software developed by Subedi and Hussain will help semiconductor giants like Broadcom and Marvell design custom AI and general-purpose computing chips for cloud giants like Google (Alphabet) and Amazon.

Currently, custom chips designed by Marvell and Broadcom generate billions of dollars in revenue, acting as the primary alternatives to Nvidia’s dominant hardware supply.

However, the traditional chip design process is grueling, often taking up to two years and costing hundreds of millions of dollars in labor and R&D. Architect Labs aims to make this process significantly cheaper, faster, and more accessible.

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“Our goal is to make chip design as accessible as Taiwan’s TSMC made chip manufacturing.”  Aditya Subedi, Co-founder, Architect Labs

Solving the Architecture Bottleneck

While many startups focus on the backend layout of chips, Architect Labs is tackling a much bigger problem: alignment. Co-founder Ibrahim Hussain explained to Reuters that the biggest challenge major tech firms face today is mapping their massive workloads, whether in AI, robotics, or cloud computing, and designing the precise chip architecture required to run them efficiently.

Architect Labs plans to cater not just to traditional chipmakers, but also to software companies, AI research labs, and sovereign nations looking to build specialized hardware for complex computing tasks.

Backed by Tech Royalty: OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Nvidia Executives

The $24 million funding round reflects immense Wall Street and Silicon Valley confidence. Led by Kindred Ventures, the round also saw participation from:

• TQ Ventures

• Race Capital

• Together Fund

Remarkably, the startup has also drawn personal investments from tech royalty, including Jeff Dean (Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind), as well as top executives from OpenAI and Nvidia.

Currently based in Palo Alto, California, Architect Labs boasts a lean yet elite team of 18 experts specializing in machine learning and hardware engineering. With this financial backing, the Nepalese-led startup is perfectly positioned to reshape the future of global AI infrastructure.

For more: Architect Labs Secures $24 Million