Power, rather than compute, is fast becoming the limiting factor in scaling AI data centers. This shift has prompted Peak XV Partners to back C2i Semiconductors, an Indian startup building plug-and-play, system-level power solutions designed to cut energy losses and improve the economics of large-scale AI infrastructure.
C2i, which stands for control conversion and intelligence, has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Peak XV Partners, with participation from Yali Deeptech and TDK Ventures. This brings the two-year-old startup’s total funding to $19 million.
The investment comes as data-center energy demand accelerates worldwide. Electricity consumption from data centers is projected to nearly triple by 2035, per a December 2025 report from BloombergNEF. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs Research estimates data-center power demand could surge 175% by 2030 from 2023 levels, which is the equivalent of adding another top-10 power-consuming country.
Much of that strain comes not from generating electricity but from converting it efficiently inside data centers, where high-voltage power must be stepped down thousands of times before it reaches GPUs. This process currently wastes about 15% to 20% of energy, according to C2i’s co-founder and CTO Preetam Tadeparthy. He noted that power levels are rising, stating, “What used to be 400 volts has already moved to 800 volts, and will likely go higher.”
Founded in 2024 by former Texas Instruments power executives Ram Anant, Vikram Gakhar, Preetam Tadeparthy, and Dattatreya Suryanarayana, along with Harsha S. B and Muthusubramanian N. V, C2i is redesigning power delivery as a single, plug-and-play “grid-to-GPU” system spanning the data-center bus to the processor itself.
By treating power conversion, control, and packaging as an integrated platform, C2i estimates it can cut end-to-end losses by around 10%. This translates to roughly 100 kilowatts saved for every megawatt consumed, with knock-on effects for cooling costs, GPU utilization, and overall data-center economics. “All that translates directly to total cost of ownership, revenue, and profitability,” Tadeparthy said.
For Peak XV Partners, the attraction lies in how power costs shape the economics of AI infrastructure at scale. Rajan Anandan, the venture firm’s managing director, explained that after the upfront capital investment, energy costs become the dominant ongoing expense for data centers, making even incremental efficiency gains highly valuable. “If you can reduce energy costs by, call it, 10 to 30%, that’s like a huge number,” Anandan said. “You’re talking about tens of billions of dollars.”
The claims will be tested quickly. C2i expects its first two silicon designs to return from fabrication between April and June, after which the startup plans to validate performance with data-center operators and hyperscalers that have asked to review the data.
The Bengaluru-based startup has built a team of about 65 engineers and is setting up customer-facing operations in the U.S. and Taiwan as it prepares for early deployments.
Power delivery is one of the most entrenched parts of the data-center stack, long dominated by large incumbents. While many newer companies focus on improving individual components, redesigning power delivery end-to-end requires coordinating silicon, packaging, and system architecture simultaneously, a capital-intensive approach that few startups attempt.
Anandan said the real question now is execution, noting that all startups face technology, market, and team risks. In C2i’s case, he said, the feedback loop should be relatively short. “We’ll know in the next six months,” said Anandan, pointing to upcoming silicon and early customer validation as the moment when the thesis will be tested.
The bet also reflects how India’s semiconductor design ecosystem has matured in recent years. “The way you should look at semiconductors in India is, this is like 2008 e-commerce,” said Anandan. “It’s just getting started.” He pointed to the depth of engineering talent and government-backed design-linked incentives that have lowered the cost and risk of tape-outs, making it increasingly viable for startups to build globally competitive semiconductor products from India.
Whether those conditions translate into a globally competitive product will become clearer over the coming months, as C2i begins validating its system-level power solutions with customers.