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#AI chips

Articles tagged AI chips.

Setting AI in Stone
Big Tech

Setting AI in Stone

Etched raised at $10.3 billion for transformer-only chips. AMD just bought Taalas, which etches model weights into transistors. Hank Reed on an industry betting that AI has stopped moving.

Hank Reed
AMD Locked Up 2.5 GW of Compute From an Ex-Bitcoin Miner, and Took Warrants
Hardware & Devices

AMD Locked Up 2.5 GW of Compute From an Ex-Bitcoin Miner, and Took Warrants

AMD signed a deal with Core Scientific for up to 2.5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity, worth more than $14 billion, and took warrants to buy the operator's stock. It is AMD guaranteeing a home for its own chips.

Maya Iverson
Etched Raised $300M at $10.3B for a Chip That Only Runs Transformers
Startups & Funding

Etched Raised $300M at $10.3B for a Chip That Only Runs Transformers

Etched closed a $300 million Series C at a $10.3 billion valuation, led by Sequoia with a16z and SK hynix. Its Sohu chip hardcodes the transformer architecture and claims a large inference speedup over Nvidia, with over $1 billion in signed contracts.

Jordan Beck
Nvidia Is Prepaying Amkor $1.5B to Build US Chip Packaging. Packaging Is the Bottleneck.
Hardware & Devices

Nvidia Is Prepaying Amkor $1.5B to Build US Chip Packaging. Packaging Is the Bottleneck.

Nvidia and Amkor struck a $1.5 billion partnership, with Nvidia prepaying to expand Amkor's advanced-packaging capacity in Arizona. Packaging, not raw chips, is the constraint on how many AI accelerators ship.

Maya Iverson
TSMC Grew 36% and Its Packaging Lines Are Sold Out. That Is the AI Ceiling.
Hardware & Devices

TSMC Grew 36% and Its Packaging Lines Are Sold Out. That Is the AI Ceiling.

TSMC reported Q2 revenue of about $39.6 billion, up 36% on AI demand. N3 and CoWoS packaging are sold out through year-end, which sets the ceiling on how many AI chips ship in 2026.

Maya Iverson
Qualcomm Was Reportedly Eyeing Tenstorrent for $8-10B. Its CEO Says No Talks.
Big Tech

Qualcomm Was Reportedly Eyeing Tenstorrent for $8-10B. Its CEO Says No Talks.

Reports had Qualcomm exploring an $8-10 billion acquisition of Jim Keller's AI-chip startup Tenstorrent, and QCOM rose about 4%. Keller then denied any talks. The strategic logic survives the denial.

Sam Whitaker