CoreWeave, a cloud-computing startup backed by Nvidia, nearly tripled its valuation to $19 billion in a new funding round that highlights booming demand for the cutting-edge systems that power artificial intelligence.

The $1.1 billion funding round was led by Coatue, and follows a round about five months ago that valued seven-year-old CoreWeave at $7 billion.

The New Jersey-based company rents out chips housed in data centers across the U.S. that customers use to create and deploy AI systems. It is part of a new crop of companies offering cloud-computing tailored for AI, setting it apart from big tech companies such as Microsoft and Amazon, which offer a wider range of cloud services.

CoreWeave’s leaders, who came to the AI business via Wall Street, have made the company into one of the big winners of the AI boom by moving faster than the tech giants in offering access to the latest AI hardware. They have also been able to secure large allocations of Nvidia’s best chips to cater to the AI niche.

“We built our infrastructure specifically targeted for that specialized use,” said Michael Intrator, the company’s chief executive. “We’re not here to store your Mom’s photos, and we don’t support people’s websites.”

Building that infrastructure is enormously expensive, for CoreWeave and for tech giants including Microsoft, Google and Amazon that it competes with.

CoreWeave raised $642 million from investors in its prior funding round. It has also raised money through debt: In August, it collected $2.3 billion from investors in a deal secured by its Nvidia chips. Intrator said more such financings were on the horizon and would help further fuel the company’s expansion.

Other investors in the latest funding round include Magnetar Capital, Altimeter Capital, Lykos Global Management and Fidelity, the company said.

The company will use the funding to support the expansion of its data-center infrastructure, Intrator said, moving beyond a U.S.-centric footprint into Europe and eventually elsewhere. Already in the past year, the company has expanded from three data-center locations to 14 and has quadrupled its employee count to more than 550.

Having a broad geographic reach is increasingly important for cloud-computing companies as AI demand shifts to a deployment phase in which getting quick responses from data centers near the end user is more important.

The funding for CoreWeave comes amid growing concern about the rising valuations of AI startups that have yet to build viable businesses out of the technology. Sequoia Capital estimated in March that around $50 billion had been spent on Nvidia’s chips during the AI boom, but generative AI startups only gathered $3 billion in revenue.

Brannin McBee, CoreWeave’s co-founder, said the company saw no sign of a change in demand for AI computing power.

“It hasn’t peaked and I don’t see any signs of peaking,” he said. “If anything, I’d say it’s still materially increasing.”