Andreessen Horowitz announced on August 28, 2026 that it has raised $1.1 billion for a new vehicle called the Machine Age Fund, dedicated to the physical infrastructure artificial intelligence runs on rather than the software layered on top of it.
The fund is led by Ben Horowitz, Martin Casado, Raghu Raghuram, David Ulevitch and David George. It will invest at both early and growth stage, and partners from a16z's Infrastructure, American Dynamism and Growth funds will also invest out of it. The stated scope covers "all of the computer infrastructure on which AI runs, including chips, memory, networking, and storage," plus "full systems for running AI: from data centers to robotics to home AI appliances." The Next Web reports the definition also extends to drones, autonomous vehicles and defense systems.
The firm's argument for the raise is a supply-and-demand mismatch it puts in numbers. Compute density has risen 28-fold between Nvidia's H100 generation and its Rubin racks. Power draw per rack has gone from 5 to 10 kilowatts to 100 to 250 kilowatts, and a16z expects racks to reach 1 megawatt within three years, with data centers scaling to hundreds of megawatts and gigawatt-scale campuses. Against that, the partners write, "the hardware industry supply side is used to growing 20% to 30% per year at most; not the triple-digit growth that's needed." They call accelerating the buildout "our social and national imperative" and say "it's time to open the throttle."
The raise formalizes a shift that was already visible in the portfolio. Hardware deals grew to more than 20% of a16z's deal flow in recent years at a firm best known for Marc Andreessen's 2011 essay "Why Software Is Eating the World."
The $1.1 billion is a slice of a much larger pool. In January 2026 the firm raised $15 billion across six venture funds. The Machine Age Fund is narrower and newer: a dedicated hardware strategy rather than an allocation inside a generalist vehicle.
Larger checks at the physical layer are already in market. Nvidia has been in talks to guarantee $250 billion for OpenAI's Ohio data center, and chip startups are clearing venture-scale marks on their own — Etched raised $700 million at a $21 billion valuation led by Jane Street in August.
Source: Andreessen Horowitz
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