Princeton University

EnCharge AI, founded in 2022 by Princeton University Professor Dr. Naveen Verma, is transforming the AI industry with its innovative analog in memory computing technology. Supported by federal funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), this technology was developed in Dr. Verma’s lab at Princeton from 2015 to 2022. EnCharge AI holds an exclusive license to use these federally supported innovations, enabling the design and production of AI chips that achieve unprecedented energy efficiency compared to existing commercial processors. The company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is poised to make localized AI processing a reality, reducing reliance on energy intensive cloud data centers and enabling new AI applications in devices such as smartphones, vehicles, and industrial tools.

EnCharge AI has already demonstrated significant economic potential. The company has raised $44.3 million in private investment and secured a $18.6 million grant from DARPA’s Optimum Processing Technology Inside Memory Arrays (OPTIMA) program. Currently employing around 50 people, EnCharge AI’s advancements are set to drive economic growth in multiple sectors by creating new markets and enhancing the efficiency of AI deployment.

Princeton Professor of Computer Engineering Dr. Naveen Verma is the Co-Founder of EnCharge AI. In addition, two former graduate students from Dr. Verma’s lab, Jinseok Lee and Murat Ozatay, are now employees at EnCharge AI. The anticipated economic impact extends beyond immediate job creation, as the company’s revolutionary chips could lower costs, expand AI capabilities, and enable applications in sectors previously constrained by energy or computational limitations.