Mumbai, Jul 28 (IANS): AI edge computing company Blaize on Wednesday said it has closed a $71 million funding led by Franklin Templeton and Temasek, and aims to aggressively expand engineering and customer service teams at its facility in Hyderabad.

The funding will support acceleration of the product roadmap to meet growing demand for higher performance, lower power, lower cost AI hardware and transformational AI software solutions in automotive, smart retail, smart city and industrial markets, the company said in a statement.

It said that in India, there is a huge potential in the AI-based transformational progress in agriculture, healthcare, smart city and other initiatives.

"We are well positioned to accelerate our next generation products and sustain our lead in delivering integrated hardware and software offerings that enable true value creation for our customers," said Dinakar Munagala, CEO, Blaize.

The latest Series D funding round also saw participation from DENSO and other new and existing investors.

"Blaize has demonstrated the capability to enable value creation for organizations tapping the power of AI for edge computing," said JP Scandalios, senior vice president and portfolio manager, Franklin Templeton.

Prior to the Series D round, Blaize had secured $87 million in equity funding from strategic and venture investors.

Blaize said that it plans to strengthen its talent base in India by hiring engineers and AI technology experts across functions including hardware design, software development, verification, research and customer services.