Meta Plans to Acquire Rivos to Cut Reliance on NVIDIA and Advance AI Chip Development

Meta Set to Acquire Rivos to Reduce Reliance on NVIDIA and Boost In-House Development

Meta is preparing to acquire Rivos, a startup specializing in RISC-V chip architecture, in a strategic move to strengthen its in-house chip development capabilities and lessen its dependence on NVIDIA GPUs for AI workloads. According to a Reuters report on September 30, 2025, financial details of the deal remain undisclosed, but sources familiar with the matter say the acquisition will significantly accelerate Meta’s AI development roadmap.

Rivos, founded by former engineers from Apple and Samsung, focuses on developing GPUs and AI accelerators based on the RISC-V standard. This open-source approach enables companies to customize chips without relying on costly licensing agreements from Arm or Intel. The startup recently raised $250 million in a Series B round, reaching a $2 billion valuation, with veteran investor Lip-Bu Tan leading the funding. Rivos’ first AI chip is expected to launch in 2026.

Meta has been actively working on its own AI chips through the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) project, designed in collaboration with Broadcom and manufactured by TSMC. The MTIA chips are believed to be built on RISC-V architecture. The first MTIA chip completed its tape-out process in March 2025 and is currently undergoing limited testing in Meta’s data centers alongside NVIDIA GPUs. Acquiring Rivos would fill critical gaps in Meta’s chip team, particularly in SoC and PCIe accelerator expertise.

The outcome of the acquisition remains uncertain, as Rivos may resist Meta’s offer. With the startup valued at $2 billion, the acquisition price is expected to fall in the high nine-to-ten-figure range. If the deal falls through, it could disrupt Meta’s AI hardware plans, which still rely heavily on NVIDIA’s H200 GPUs for large-scale model training.

Should Meta succeed, the RISC-V chips resulting from the acquisition could become one of the most significant projects in the industry. Although RISC-V adoption remains limited in US data centers — mostly appearing in MCUs and IoT devices — this move could change that.

While China has already begun adopting RISC-V for tablets and laptops, Meta’s potential use of the architecture to replace NVIDIA accelerators would mark a pivotal shift, potentially driving widespread adoption of RISC-V in global data infrastructure markets.