French semiconductor co Kalray enters Romania

The Romanian unit will be manufacturing electronic components, according to data published in the Official Gazette on Monday.

The French parent provides patented DPU (Data Processing Unit) processors and acceleration cards, as well as data management and storage software and hardware to design data-centric applications for Fortune 500 customers in media and entertainment, life sciences, research, manufacturing and telecommunications.

Employing around 200, Kalray has offices in France, England, the US, and Japan.

Kalray holds thirty patent families and has invested over 180 million euro ($195.1 million) in R&D, developing its third generation of Massively Parallel Processor Array DPUs that meet the demands of artificial intelligence and data-intensive applications for next-generation data centres, it said in an investor presentation document published in January.

In 2023, Kalray's consolidated revenue jumped 57% year-on-year to 25.8 million euro. A third of the revenue was generated by the hardware division, while two thirds were attributable to the software sector. Half the revenue was generated in the EU and UK, while the US market accounted for 40%.

Kalray was founded in 2008 as a spin-off of French CEA research lab, with corporate and financial investors such as the venture capital fund of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Alliance Ventures, Dutch semiconductor and manufacturer NXP Semiconductors, as well as French investment bank Bpifrance.

Kalray has not responded to a SeeNews e-mail seeking comment by the time this article was published.

($=0.9226 euro)