(TNS) — El Dorado Hills-based Blaize Holdings announced a $120 million artificial intelligence infrastructure deal with a Hong Kong firm last week, sending the semiconductor startup’s shares up 59% to close at $4.81 on Friday.
Blaize develops chips and a software platform for AI computing. Its contract with Starshine Computing Power Technology is set to run through 2026 and will support “smart city” applications in Asia spanning urban surveillance, retail automation and agriculture technology, according to a July 17 news release.
But beyond the Wall Street bump, the deal marks what could be a turning point for the Sacramento region’s tech ambitions.
Sacramento has started to appear in national rankings for metro job prospects and growth, said Barry Broome, president and CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. But marquee wins — like a company going public and securing a nine-figure contract — help the region’s tech identity catch up to its economic performance.
Even as Intel, one of the region’s largest tech campuses, makes headlines for major downsizing in Folsom, other semiconductor firms are choosing to live and grow in the region, from Bosch in Roseville to Solidigm in Rancho Cordova and Azimuth AI in Folsom.
Economic development officials, including Broome, hope the region can capitalize on the next wave of the chipmaking industry.
“This is the beginning of real-world AI infrastructure at scale,” said Blaize CEO Dinakar Munagala in a press release.
Munagala co-founded Blaize in 2010 after leaving Intel’s Folsom campus, betting on flexible, energy-efficient chip architectures designed for AI. Going public in January transformed Blaize from a promising local startup into a Wall Street-watched company.
That visibility matters because “when they were privately held, nobody would know about that $120 million contract,” Broome explained. Prominent, outward-facing achievements such as this Starshine deal can put Blaize — and by extension, Sacramento — on investors’ radars, he said.
As of March, Blaize employed about 20 people in El Dorado Hills and another 20 in San Jose, with over 100 more in India and additional teams in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the U.S.
Broome argued the symbolic weight of Blaize’s growth is more important than its local headcount. “It tells the semiconductor startup community: you can come to Sacramento and build from scratch,” he said.
But Sanjay Varshney, professor of finance at Sacramento State, isn’t convinced.
While he said it’s commendable, Blaize went public and remains headquartered in El Dorado Hills, he believes that 20 jobs don’t “make a dent” in the local economy.
He sees Blaize’s Sacramento ties as a product of legacy rather than strategy — an Intel spin-off that stayed rooted nearby. He also pointed out that despite the post-deal surge, Blaize’s stock is still trading at less than a third of its value when the company went public in January.
“It’s a tough, competitive space,” Varshney said. “I would like to believe that (Blaize) could be that one company. But the story has been seen again and again in the past 25 years here in Sacramento.”
Blaize declined to comment for this article, citing a “quiet period” for their executives.
In the first quarter of 2025, the company reported a net loss of nearly $148 million, as compared to a $17 million loss during the same period last year, according to regulatory filings. But its revenue doubled from $549,000 in the first quarter of 2024 to $1m in 2025. Going forward, they report expecting major revenue growth, totaling $19 to $50 million by the end of the year.
For Broome, Blaize’s success could create ripple effects. If it thrives while headquartered in El Dorado, it will serve as “proof of concept” that a chipmaking company can be built here, Broome said. Local investors who backed Blaize early may see returns that increase their appetite for more Sacramento-area investments.
To fully capitalize on this momentum, Sacramento needs stronger university engineering programs and continued policy support, Broome said. But if Blaize’s progress holds, it could provide something invaluable for an emerging tech hub: credibility.
“Sometimes one company will change an entire town’s reputation,” Broome said.
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