McDermott Advises Ardian on VSORA Deal

McDermott Will & Schulte has advised Ardian Semiconductor on its minority investment in VSORA, a French company designing artificial intelligence inference chips for data centres.

Ardian announced the completed investment on 1 July 2026, and McDermott Will & Schulte confirmed its role on 9 July. The financial terms were not disclosed. Ardian invested alongside VSORA’s management, existing shareholders and new strategic and financial investors.

The transaction is Ardian Semiconductor’s fourth investment, following its acquisitions of Ion Beam Services (IBS), Synergie Cad and Centrotherm. Ardian established the platform in partnership with Silian Partners, whose semiconductor executives provide industry expertise and operational support across its investments.

Founded in 2015 and based in France, VSORA is a fabless chip designer focused on processors for AI inference, the stage at which a trained AI model applies what it has learned to new data. The company has developed an architecture intended to address the “memory wall”, where moving data between memory and processors restricts computing performance.

Its Jotunn8 accelerator is designed for data-centre applications, with an emphasis on latency, energy use and operating costs. Ardian said its investment would help VSORA expand its commercial activity and gain access to senior semiconductor industry expertise.

VSORA also belongs to the AION consortium led by Ardian, Artefact, Bull, Capgemini, EDF, iliad Group, Orange and Scaleway. The consortium intends to bid under the European Union’s AI Gigafactories initiative, which supports the creation of large-scale facilities for developing and training next-generation AI models in Europe.

McDermott Will & Schulte’s Paris team comprised partners Fabrice Piollet and Grégoire Andrieux and associate Jordan Ohayon. The mandate combines a conventional minority investment with the less routine questions raised by a fabless semiconductor business, including ownership of chip designs, access to manufacturing capacity and the contractual terms governing specialist suppliers.

Due diligence on similar investments should establish which company owns the relevant intellectual property and whether licences, research agreements or consortium commitments restrict its use. Dependence on particular manufacturers and specialist suppliers must also be examined, as an investor may acquire an interest in valuable technology without gaining control over its production.

VSORA’s membership of the AION consortium connects its commercial plans with a proposed bid under the European Union’s AI Gigafactories initiative. Counsel advising VSORA, Ardian or other consortium participants must ensure that investment terms, shareholder rights and consortium commitments remain consistent as the project develops. Comparable mandates will require law firms to coordinate corporate, intellectual property, regulatory and commercial advice from the outset.