AI Infrastructure
AI Can Be Underbuilt and Overinvested at the Same Time
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. delivered almost everything an AI infrastructure bull could have wanted from its second-quarter earnings report. Revenue reached $40.2 billion, an increase of 33.7% from a year earlier. TSMC recorded another quarter of record profit. Gross margin reached 67.7%, operating margin came in at 60.3%, and management raised its expectations for full-year […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 20, 2026 · 8 min
China’s Chip Ambitions Rise as CXMT Launches $10 Billion IPO
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. is launching a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) on Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR Board to raise nearly $10 billion, one of the largest in Asian history and a crucial test of investor appetite for China’s burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. The Hefei-based DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) champion has […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 15, 2026 · 2 min
Meta to Begin Production of Custom Iris AI Chips in September in Bid for 14-Gigawatt Power Grid: Report
Meta Platforms Inc. plans to begin manufacturing its next-generation custom artificial intelligence (AI) chip in September, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters. Code-named Iris, the in-house silicon is part of a broader effort by the social media giant to double its computing infrastructure capacity to 14 gigawatts by next year and reduce its […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 14, 2026 · 2 min
DeepSeek Developing Custom Inference Chip Amid China’s AI Hardware Push
Chinese startup DeepSeek is reportedly developing its own AI inference chip, a move that would lessen its reliance on processors from NVIDIA and Huawei and place it on a growing list of AI developers building proprietary silicon. The planned processor is intended for inference, when an AI model produces responses to user prompts. That segment […]
James Maguire · Jul 7, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Makes Data Center Push Targeting AI Infrastructure
Qualcomm recently held an Investor Day conference where it laid out an aggressive strategy to push into data center market, while working alongside dominant players like NVIDIA and Intel rather than competing with them. If all goes according to plan, Qualcomm will have diversified its market considerably beyond just smartphones and become a major supplier […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 29, 2026 · 3 min
Apple Seeks White House Approval to Buy Chips From Blacklisted Chinese Maker Amid AI Supply Crunch
Apple Inc. is lobbying the Trump administration for federal permission to purchase memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. (CXMT), a prominent Chinese semiconductor firm currently blacklisted by the U.S. government, according to a report by The Financial Times. The tech giant approached the Commerce Department more than a month ago and has engaged White […]
Jon Swartz · Jun 28, 2026 · 2 min
Micron, Anthropic Partner for Next-Gen AI Infrastructure
Micron Technology and Anthropic have announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop the next generation of artificial intelligence infrastructure. The partnership will focus on optimizing memory and storage solutions for large-scale AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude systems. “Our compute strategy depends on getting every layer of the stack right, and memory and storage are central […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 26, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Bets on Hybrid Systems for Quantum Computing
Add AMD to the list of chip vendors looking to get into quantum computing. It is making a push into the emerging technology, arguing that the industry’s future will not be built on standalone quantum machines but on tightly integrated systems that combine quantum processors with high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence infrastructure. In a […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 23, 2026 · 2 min
NVIDIA Says the Future of AI Factories Is Hotter
NVIDIA has announced it has found a solution to the water crisis plaguing data centers: hot water. The company says that the next generation of AI factories will run hotter than a hot tub, yet consume less energy and water thanks to a breakthrough in liquid cooling technology. In a new blog post published during […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 23, 2026 · 2 min
SK hynix Ships Samples of 12-Layer Next-Gen HBM4E
South Korean memory maker SK hynix has announced it has delivered HBM4E memory samples to major customers, marking an impending release. HBM4E is special because it pushes high-bandwidth memory into a much faster, denser, and more efficient tier for AI and HPC systems. It extends the same 2048-bit, 32-channel architecture of HBM4 to higher per-pin […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 18, 2026 · 1 min
Trump Announces Blockbuster Apple-Intel Chip Deal as ‘RAMmageddon’ Hits Tech Industry
President Donald Trump announced early Thursday that Apple Inc. has agreed to partner with Intel Corp. to design and manufacture its semiconductor chips domestically – a potentially big win for the White House’s aggressive campaign to reshore critical technology manufacturing to the U.S. through targeted tariffs and state-backed investments. Writing on Truth Social, Trump criticized […]
Jon Swartz · Jun 18, 2026 · 3 min
AMD Acquires MEXT to Tackle AI Data Center Memory Bottlenecks
Advanced Micro Devices has acquired memory optimization startup MEXT to strengthen its ability to address memory bottlenecks in AI infrastructure. The acquisition expands AMD’s data center portfolio with software technology that enables more efficient use of memory resources, helping enterprises run larger AI workloads without requiring greater investments in expensive DRAM. Financial terms of the […]
James Maguire · Jun 16, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Explores Tenstorrent Acquisition to Bolster AI Chip Strategy
Qualcomm is reportedly in discussions to acquire AI chip startup Tenstorrent in a deal that could value the company between $8 billion and $10 billion, a move that would significantly expand Qualcomm’s position in AI infrastructure and data center computing. According to reports, negotiations remain ongoing and there is no assurance a deal will ultimately […]
James Maguire · Jun 16, 2026 · 3 min
Are Language Processing Units the Next Big Deal in AI Computing?
The AI race has produced dozens of semiconductor startups as it has become clear that NVIDIA GPUs aren’t the solution to everything. Much of the activity is around inference, where GPUs are viewed as overkill. A new category of processor is emerging: the Language Processing Unit, or LPU. With large language models (LLMs) at the […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 16, 2026 · 2 min
AI Doesn’t Need to Own the Plane
The reported compute agreements involving Google, Anthropic, and SpaceX immediately generated questions about scale. Google is said to be committing roughly $920 million per month for AI compute capacity, while Anthropic has reportedly entered into a similarly significant arrangement. Combined, the agreements represent access to hundreds of thousands of GPUs and billions of dollars in […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 9, 2026 · 4 min
Microsoft Unveils Majorana 2 Quantum Computing Chip
Microsoft has introduced Majorana 2, the second generation of its topological quantum processor, promising major advancements in performance. According to Microsoft, Majorana 2 delivers dramatically improved qubit reliability and longer coherence times than its predecessor, with the potential for fault-tolerant quantum computing. The company says the new processor achieves average qubit lifetimes measured in seconds […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 8, 2026 · 2 min
Cisco Needs Its Own Silicon to Compete in AI Infrastructure
For most of Cisco’s history, the company occupied a well-defined place in the technology stack. Cisco built the networks that connected everything else. Servers evolved. Storage evolved. Applications evolved. Cisco moved the packets between them. That position created one of the most successful companies in technology history. It may not be enough for the AI […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 3, 2026 · 5 min
NVIDIA Plays a Delicate Balancing Game
NVIDIA’s recent announcement that it plans to invest roughly $150 billion annually in Taiwan and establish a major headquarters presence there generated headlines around the world. Given Taiwan’s role in the semiconductor industry, the move was hardly surprising. TSMC manufactures NVIDIA’s most advanced chips, and the broader ecosystem of suppliers, packaging specialists and manufacturing partners […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 1, 2026 · 5 min
AI in the Backyard: How NVIDIA, Span Are Turning American Suburbs into Decentralized Data Centers
As Silicon Valley grapples with a burgeoning energy crisis and fierce community pushback over massive, warehouse-sized data centers, a California startup believes the solution to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution lies in your backyard. Span, a smart-home technology firm, is pivoting away from the traditional centralized model of computing infrastructure. In a strategic partnership with AI
Jon Swartz · May 7, 2026 · 2 min
Broadcom Deepens AI Push with Google and Anthropic Alliances
Broadcom is strengthening its position in the AI infrastructure market, expanding its partnerships with Google and Anthropic in a move that demonstrates how demand for compute capacity is reshaping the chip sector. The company announced new agreements to develop future generations of Google’s custom AI processors while enabling Anthropic to access approximately
James Maguire · Apr 7, 2026 · 3 min