ASI, the Boston-based artificial intelligence developer formerly known as Air Space Intelligence, has closed a $325 million Series C round at a $3 billion valuation, one of the largest venture deals in Massachusetts this year. Spark Capital led the round, with participation from affiliates of Citadel Securities, Meritech Capital, Craft Ventures, Energy Impact Partners and Andreessen Horowitz.
Unlike the large language models behind consumer chatbots, ASI’s AI runs continuous simulations of physical operations, projecting conditions hours, days and weeks ahead. By combining probabilistic forecasting with deterministic models, the system helps operators anticipate congestion, load spikes and logistical bottlenecks before they occur.
Founder and chief executive Phillip Buckendorf said that while the wider tech sector has spent hundreds of billions of dollars teaching AI to work with words and text, ASI is focused on AI systems that manage and control physical assets, from aircraft and vessels to the energy grid.
The funding follows a 12-year, $875 million program of record from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA to modernize the National Airspace System, a contract Bloomberg reported ASI won over Palantir and Thales. The U.S. Army also recently awarded the company a five-year, $99 million contract for its Next Generation Command and Control program.
ASI will use the capital to expand deployments across energy, logistics and defense and to grow its Boston research and engineering team.
