Axelera AI launches europa aipu chip with 629 tops AI performance

On September 16, 2026, Dutch chip startup Axelera AI announced the release of its second-generation AIPU chip, Europa. The SoC delivers 629 TOPS of AI performance through 8 AI processing cores and integrates 16 RISC-V vector processing cores. Europa supports INT4, INT8, and INT16 data formats, features a 128MB on-chip L2 cache, and includes 256-bit LPDDR5 memory with 4 PCIe Gen4 lanes, operating at 45W. Axelera AI will sell Europa as both a standalone chip and a PCIe AIC. The company claims Europa offers six times the token throughput per watt compared to GPU solutions and up to eight times the token throughput per price compared to leading competitors. The Europa chip is positioned as a high-performance AI inference processor, with its capabilities highlighted in a separate article titled '629TOP INT8 AI Performance, Axelera Launches AI Inference Processor Europa.' The release marks Axelera AI's continued expansion in the AI hardware market, emphasizing efficiency and performance in AI workloads.