Navitas buys Claros to break the AI power wall

Navitas Semiconductor has signed a deal to acquire Claros, a US power-management company whose technology regulates voltage directly beneath the chip, for up to $232.8 million, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Claros develops vertical power delivery (VPD) and integrated voltage regulator (IVR) technology designed to power high-current, high-speed AI chips, stacking power conversion, drive, control, and passive components into a compact package that sits directly below or inside the chip package or circuit board and shrinks the distance power travels from inches to millimeters, a configuration Claros says delivers faster transient response, lower impedance, and higher efficiency at sub-volt levels.

For Navitas, the acquisition extends a product line built on gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC), the wide-bandgap semiconductors that underpin its 800V high-voltage direct current architecture for high-density AI racks, while Claros operates at the opposite end of the power spectrum, managing the low-voltage, high-current stage that feeds the processor. Navitas CEO Chris Allexandre said the industry's 'power wall' currently restricts next-generation xPUs in megawatt-scale server racks. 'Combining Claros' VPD and IVR technologies with Navitas' GaN and high-voltage and ultra-high voltage SiC portfolio, we break the AI infrastructure power wall, advancing the entire power chain from grid-to-xPU,' he said.

The consideration is structured in two parts: about $216 million payable in cash and Class A common stock, valued using Navitas's August 21, 2026 closing price of $12.97, with the remainder payable in stock if Claros hits milestones over the following two years. The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close before the end of the year, subject to regulatory approval.

Claros was launched in 2024 by Dan Kultran, who serves as CEO and previously was CTO of Epirus, a drone-defense maker that manufactures high-power microwave systems. Navitas, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Torrance, California, sells power chips that it says convert and manage electricity more efficiently than traditional chips.

For infrastructure investors, the deal is a useful reminder that the data center power problem exists at every scale, from the transmission grid to the socket around the processor. The past two years have seen a wave of investment in grid capacity, interconnection queues, and high-voltage distribution inside the rack, but Navitas's move zeroes in on the final segment of that chain: the space between the voltage regulator and the die. At sub-volt operating points and currents in the hundreds of amps, that short path determines whether the chip receives clean, stable power or suffers droop and noise that leaves performance on the table.

The deal also suggests a shift in how the industry is thinking about the power wall, which is typically used to describe a physical or economic limit on how much electricity a rack can draw. Allexandre's framing, grid-to-xPU, treats the entire power path as a single design problem, and Claros's technology is aimed at the part of that path that most vendors have treated as an afterthought. The price, up to $232.8 million, is a meaningful bet for a company of Navitas's size, and the milestone-based earn-out ties a substantial piece of that value to actual deployment.

Grid access and planning consent have become the binding constraints on data center buildout, as this publication has argued, and capital has rightly flowed to assets that secure power early. That remains true, but this acquisition points to a second constraint once the power reaches the rack: the final delivery to the processor, and ownership of that interface, between the voltage regulator and the die, is a position worth paying for.

The earn-out structure gives Claros a direct incentive to drive its VPD and IVR designs into production quickly, and it gives Navitas a way to pay for success rather than promise. If the power wall turns out to be as binding as Allexandre suggests, the technology Navitas is buying today will be the layer that unlocks the next wave of AI performance; if not, the acquisition still leaves Navitas with a stronger story to tell hyperscalers and server makers about end-to-end power management. The battle over AI performance is now being fought in millimeters as well as nanometers.