Oxide Computer raises $445M to step up data center rack production

Data center hardware startup Oxide Computer Inc. today announced that it has raised $445 million in funding.

Returning backer Eclipse Capital led the Series D round. It was joined by AMD Ventures, Riot Ventures, Jane Street, Atreides Management and USIT, which led Oxide’s previous $200 million raise in February.

Oxide sells a data center rack that combines computing, storage and network equipment in a pre-integrated package. It contains 24 hardware modules dubbed sleds. Each sled hosts an up to 144-core central processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The CPU has access to about 1.64 terabytes of memory and up to 300 terabytes of flash storage.

Each sled’s core components are supported by a custom chip called the Oxide Server Processor. It’s responsible for optimizing operating temperatures inside the module. Additionally, the chip manages the flow of power and installs firmware updates.

The sleds in an Oxide rack are linked together by two switches. The switches use a custom routing protocol to create a continuously updated map of the rack’s internal network. If the map shows that a networking component is malfunctioning, the switches route traffic around it to avoid slowdowns.

The rack’s storage equipment likewise includes reliability optimizations. It creates three copies of each record and stores them in different flash modules to provide redundancy. In the background, a so-called checksum mechanism searches for any data errors that may have to be resolved. 

The sleds, storage equipment and switches draw electricity from two power shelves. Each shelf contains six rectifiers, devices that lower the voltage of incoming current to make it suitable for use by chips. There’s also a modified version of the Oxide Service Processor that tracks power shelf health and energy usage.

Customers can split the hardware inside an Oxide rack into multiple virtual networks. A software company, for example, could create a separate environment for each engineering team. Data traffic between the environments regulated by a built-in firewall.

“The accelerating pace of on-prem cloud computing projects has required us to scale manufacturing capacity by 20x over the past 12 months, and yet demand still exceeds supply,” said Oxide co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Tuck. “This funding will allow us to aggressively invest in the materials and manufacturing scale our customers need for years to come.”

Oxide will also upgrade its rack design. In August, the company disclosed plans to develop a version of its computing sled that can host a graphics card. Oxide hinted that it will seek to partner with AMD on the initiative. 

Photo: Oxide Computer