UPMEM: EIC Accelerator Memory-Chip Pioneer Sold Out of Insolvency

Computers waste much of their energy moving data between memory and processor. UPMEM, founded in Grenoble in 2015, attacked that problem at its root by putting small processors inside the memory chips themselves, so calculations happen where the data already sits. It shipped what researchers describe as the first commercially available processing-in-memory (PIM) system, and the European Innovation Council backed it twice: with a grant and, in 2023, with equity.

Eleven months after the EIC Fund's investment, UPMEM stopped paying its debts. A court placed it in receivership in October 2024, approved a sale plan in May 2025 in which Qualcomm France appears as a party, and opened liquidation in July 2025. Deal trackers now record UPMEM as acquired by Qualcomm. The technology survives inside an American chip giant; the company the EU invested in does not.

What Happened to UPMEM

The French company registers tell the story in dates. According to Societe.com and Pappers, the court fixed the cessation of payments, the legal start of insolvency, at 23 August 2024. It opened receivership (redressement judiciaire) on 8 October 2024, approved a sale plan (plan de cession) on 28 May 2025 and placed the company in liquidation on 8 July 2025, where it remains. Pappers lists Qualcomm France as a party to the proceedings of 28 May 2025, the date of the sale plan.

Neither the sale price nor the terms have been published. Deal databases including CB Insights now record UPMEM as acquired by Qualcomm in 2025, with dates ranging from June to September.

The Technology: Computing Where the Data Is

In a conventional server, data has to travel from memory to the processor and back for every operation. For data-heavy work such as analytics, search and some AI tasks, that traffic, not the calculation, dominates time and energy, a bottleneck known as the memory wall. UPMEM's answer was DRAM modules that fit into standard server memory slots but contain thousands of small general-purpose processors next to the memory cells. According to the project objective, PIM-equipped servers "have proven to be up to 20x faster, 10x more efficient" than conventional ones.

The platform found an academic following. Research groups have published extensive studies using it, and it was widely described as the first commercially available PIM architecture. That made it valuable enough for Qualcomm to take part in the sale. It did not make it a business that could pay its bills.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

ENERGIA/PIM ran from 1 March 2022 to 29 February 2024 under the 2021 challenge for Strategic Digital and Health Technologies. It framed the problem as data-centre energy, which it said accounted for 2% of global electricity use and could reach 10% by 2030. The project's CORDIS report for the period to February 2024 says the team designed a new PIM chip, with a "new enhanced chip interface, new low power processor pipeline" and security features, wrote its control software and "worked with prime server partners (Intel, QCT, Supermicro) to prepare the server integration". It reports no sales figures and gives no assessment of impact, marked "Not applicable".

1. A commercial PIM chip for data centresDeliveredUPMEM announced its commercial-grade chip as available to cloud markets globally in September 2023.
2. A next-generation PIM chipDesignedChip, software and server integration work reported on CORDIS.
3. A viable European chip companyFailedInsolvent six months after the project ended; in liquidation since July 2025.

The Last Two Years

In September 2023, UPMEM announced €4.1 million of equity from the EIC Fund, Partech, Western Digital Capital and C4 Ventures, alongside its €2.5 million grant. The chair of the EIC Fund's board, Svetoslava Georgieva, said the company was "proving that European players are regaining strategic positions in semiconductor design". Less than a year later the company was insolvent.

The Money

UPMEM filed its accounts confidentially, so its revenue and losses were never public; the last summary figure, for 2020, shows turnover below €700,000. The EIC Fund's September 2023 stake, like those of the private investors, now depends on the outcome of the liquidation.

Why Europe Should Care

UPMEM was exactly the kind of company the EU says it wants: a European fabless chip designer with a new architecture, relevant to data-centre energy and to AI. The EIC Fund's own chair presented it as evidence that Europe was regaining ground in semiconductor design. Its end is the opposite case: European public money funded the development, and the result was sold out of insolvency with an American company as the counterparty.

The Verdict

UPMEM, its liquidator and Qualcomm have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.