QIA Joins $380 Million Nearfield Round For AI Chip Metrology
Nearfield Instruments raised $380 million at a $1.6 billion valuation, with Qatar Investment Authority joining a semiconductor metrology round aimed at advanced AI chip manufacturing.
QIA Enters A Semiconductor Metrology Round
Qatar Investment Authority has joined Nearfield Instruments’ $380 million Series D, putting Gulf capital into a Dutch company that sells measurement and inspection systems for advanced semiconductor production.
Nearfield said the transaction values the Rotterdam-based business at $1.6 billion.
Fidelity Management & Research Company led the financing.
Temasek, Walden Catalyst Ventures, Innovation Industries, M&G Investments and Invest-NL also participated, while TNO Ventures and ING returned as existing investors.
Nearfield described the round as the largest deep-tech fundraising in the Netherlands.
The QIA participation gives the financing a Gulf capital angle, but the operating story is narrower and more technical than a general AI investment.
Nearfield works in 3D metrology and process control, the measurement layer chipmakers use to manage advanced manufacturing steps, improve yield and keep new device structures manufacturable.
AI Chips Need Measurement As Much As Capacity
Nearfield says the semiconductor industry has to deliver more computing performance while reducing energy consumption and moving data faster.
Its pitch is that high-throughput measurements help control advanced processes as chip designs become harder to manufacture.
The company named High-NA EUV, Gate-All-Around and CFET architectures, and hybrid-bonded 3D integration as the manufacturing areas where its tools are designed to operate.
Those are not consumer-facing AI products.
They are production constraints behind the chips used for AI training and inference.
Nearfield said the new capital will accelerate its innovation roadmap, create Applications Centers of Excellence worldwide, expand production capacity, strengthen customer support and deepen collaborative research and development with leading semiconductor manufacturers.
The company did not name customer contracts or disclose how much QIA invested in the round.
The Unpriced Piece Is QIA's Share
Chief executive Hamed Sadeghian said the round reflects the growing strategic importance of metrology and inspection in AI-driven semiconductor innovation.
M&G Investments’ Niranjan Sirdeshpande framed atomic-precision manufacturing as a strategic requirement as chipmakers push toward next-generation nodes and 3D integration.
Walden Catalyst’s Young Sohn connected Nearfield’s market to the scaling of AI and the move toward more complex 3D semiconductor architectures.
Those investor comments support the same thesis: capital is moving not only into compute operators and chip designers, but also into the inspection tools needed to manufacture harder chips.
For Qatar’s sovereign investor, the unresolved point is financial rather than technical.
Nearfield named QIA as a new investor, but did not disclose QIA’s investment size or the customer commitments attached to the expanded production plan.
