Custom Silicon
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
MIT Researchers Unveil Petabit Photonic Networking Chip
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they have made a series of breakthroughs that could pave the way for computer chips capable of transmitting more than a petabit of data per second while consuming far less energy. The work comes from MIT’s Future of Integrated Photonics and Electronics Microsystems (FUTUR-IC) research program, […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 13, 2026 · 2 min
Unpatchable Bug Found in Older Apple CPUs
A security research firm has published details of a new vulnerability affecting two generations of Apple CPUs that cannot be fixed through software updates. Security research firm Paradigm Shift has published details of a vulnerability in the BootROM of Apple’s A12, S4/S5, and A13 mobile chips, along with a working proof-of-concept exploit. The A12 processor […]
Andy Patrizio · Jun 24, 2026 · 2 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
Motive and Latin American Carriers Turn Mobile Infrastructure Into a Growth Engine
Motive’s Entitlement Server transforms Latin American mobile infrastructure into a growth engine for carriers like Claro, Vivo, and Entel.
Keith Kirkpatrick · Jun 10, 2026 · 5 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
Salesforce Bets on Contentful to Make Agentic AI and Content Orchestration Table Stakes
Salesforce’s Contentful acquisition makes content orchestration a native AI feature, raising competitive stakes for enterprise software platforms.
Keith Kirkpatrick · Jun 2, 2026 · 4 min
Cerebras’ $95B First Day Valuation Sizes Up the 2028 XPU Opportunity
The Cerebras IPO’s $95B valuation prices in massive 2028 XPU opportunity, signaling exponential custom silicon market growth beyond GPU dominance.
Brendan Burke · May 15, 2026 · 5 min
Tenstorrent’s Galaxy Blackhole: Can RISC-V Processors Expand Fast Inference Globally?
Tenstorrent Galaxy Blackhole compute server enters volume production, offering record-setting inference performance and open-source compatibility.
Brendan Burke · May 4, 2026 · 5 min
Meta’s AWS Pact Reframes the Graviton CPU as an AI Workhorse
Meta deploys tens of millions of AWS Graviton cores to power agentic AI workloads, reframing CPUs as essential AI infrastructure.
Brendan Burke · Apr 27, 2026 · 6 min
Google Splits Its TPU Line to Enter the Era of Agentic Silicon
Google splits its TPU line into TPU 8t for training and TPU 8i for inference, marking a workload-specific approach to custom AI accelerator.
Brendan Burke · Apr 24, 2026 · 6 min
Is Anthropic’s $100 Billion Pact for AWS Silicon a Bargain in a Supply-Constrained Market?
Anthropic commits $100B to AWS Trainium custom silicon, reshaping frontier AI compute supply chains and cloud infrastructure economics.
Brendan Burke · Apr 23, 2026 · 6 min
Cerebras S-1 Teardown: Is the $23B Wafer-Scale IPO the End of GPU Homogeneity?
Cerebras S-1 teardown: Is the $23B wafer-scale bet justified by a $20B OpenAI deal, or does 86% UAE revenue concentration signal risk?
Brendan Burke · Apr 22, 2026 · 10 min
Meta’s MTIA Partnership With Broadcom Solidifies the Future of XPUs in Inference Optimization
Meta Broadcom MTIA show Meta’s custom silicon push with Broadcom, linking inference scale, networking, and efficiency to an AI buildout.
Brendan Burke · Apr 20, 2026 · 4 min
Anthropic’s Google-Broadcom Deal: Model Company or Infrastructure Play?
Anthropic’s compute partnership with Google and Broadcom signals a strategic shift into infrastructure control.
Nick Patience · Apr 13, 2026 · 5 min
Anthropic’s Gigawatt-Scale TPU Deal with Broadcom Creates a Structural Advantage
Anthropic TPU expansion with Google and Broadcom show compute scale, custom silicon partnerships, and AI infrastructure competition dynamics.
Brendan Burke · Apr 9, 2026 · 6 min
Microsoft’s Maia 200 Signals the XPU Shift Toward Reinforcement Learning
Microsoft’s 3nm AI inference accelerator with FP4/FP8 tensor cores, 216GB HBM3e at 7 TB/s. The XPU market reached $31B in 2025 according to Futurum’s research.
Brendan Burke · Jan 25, 2026 · 1 min