The South Korean company Furiosa AI has chosen Lisbon to establish its European headquarters, and Nuno Lopes, INESC-ID researcher in high-performance computing architectures and systems, was appointed director of what he anticipates will become a unique strategic centre of Furiosa AI’s operations.

The facility will focus on research and development activities, in addition to overseeing commercial operations and providing technical support to the whole continent. According to Nuno Lopes, it will be an opportunity to strengthen ties between INESC-ID’s research in relevant areas and the business sector, as the company aims to actively contribute to the Portuguese academic ecosystem. He adds that this will improve the retention of national talent in the field, by employing professionals who would, otherwise, emigrate for more attractive offers.

Having made several contributions in the field of compilers, Nuno Lopes first connected with Furiosa AI at a conference on the same topic. Nine years later, the European headquarters are set to be established in Portugal, a decision backed by the existence of a highly specialised academic community in the field of chip design and artificial intelligence (AI), and the availability of compiler specialists. According to the company, it’s a move aligned with the strategy to become a reference partner for European research entities, responding to the market’s needs in the field of AI.

Furiosa AI was founded in 2017 to develop chips specialised for AI, an alternative to Nvidia’s GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit). “For years, AI research has revolved almost exclusively around GPUs, which ended up shaping not only the tools, but also the way we think about algorithms. A different architecture is an invitation to question those assumptions,” says Nuno Lopes. “We are counting on the curiosity of the INESC-ID community to explore this. It’s exactly the kind of research that excites us.”

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Image: © 2026 Furiosa AI