Capital moving into open chip architecture is not a vote for openness as a principle — it is a structural bet that the cost curve on proprietary AI infrastructure has become untenable. New research pointing to billions in potential savings from open-weight AI models is already reshaping enterprise procurement logic, even as closed systems retain organizational preference at the top of the stack. SiFive's oversubscribed $400 million round, backed by NVIDIA, converts that procurement logic into a valuation event — the market has assigned a $3.65 billion price to the…