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AI Infrastructure

A drone flying outdoors
AI Infrastructure

Russia's AI-guided drone attack shows autonomy has reached the battlefield

A Russian drone guided entirely by artificial intelligence killed three people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in an attack that shows autonomous targeting is moving from demonstrations into active warfare. Ukrainian officials told The New York Times that the aircraft used an Nvidia Jetson Orin minicomputer and visual navigation rather than relying on a continuous remote-pilot link. The module was reportedly not encrypted, allowing investigators to inspect terrain imagery uploaded to the system. Tho

3 min
HardwareNational Security
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AI Infrastructure

Groq Raises $350 Million as Its AI Chip Company Becomes a Neocloud

Groq has raised $350 million as it shifts from being primarily an AI-chip maker to operating a neocloud that rents out powerful GPUs and infrastructure. The round, led by Disruptive with planned participation from Nvidia, values the company at $3.5 billion, TechCrunch reports. The pivot reflects a basic problem in AI hardware: a good accelerator is not enough. Customers also need clusters, networking, software, support and predictable access. By selling finished capacity, Groq can capture recu

2 min
FundingHardware
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AI Infrastructure

Nvidia's $1.5 Billion SB Energy Bet Ties OpenAI Compute to the Power Buildout

Nvidia said Monday it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, a data-centre developer linked to SoftBank and OpenAI. The deal makes Nvidia the sole compute-infrastructure supplier for OpenAI's Ports-Pike data centre near Cincinnati, Ohio, while Nvidia will provide up to $105 billion in financing, according to TechCrunch's report. This is more than a chip sale. The arrangement connects an accelerator vendor to the land, electricity and capital required to deploy those accelerators at scale. Nvid

2 min
Enterprise AIHardware
International flags waving under a clear sky, representing competing AI alliances
AI Infrastructure

Washington draws a line in the global AI alliance race

The United States is preparing to tell dozens of countries they may have to choose between Washington and Beijing in the global AI race. A draft State Department letter reviewed by Reuters warns the 35 signatories of a US AI statement that joining China’s competing framework could exclude them from a US-led coalition. Reuters reporting via The Jerusalem Post says the letter has not yet been sent and could still change. The pressure campaign turns an already competitive technology relationship

2 min
AI RegulationChina AI
Illuminated server racks in a modern data centre
AI Infrastructure

SpaceX’s AI bill is now a test of whether Starlink can pay for ambition

SpaceX says its AI spending is already producing returns faster than expected, but the company’s first public earnings call left investors focused on a harder question: how long can Starlink profits finance a rapidly expanding data-centre and Nvidia-chip operation? Reuters’ latest AI Weekly report put that tension at the centre of its August 6 coverage. The spending is part of Elon Musk’s broader attempt to connect launch capacity, satellite communications and artificial intelligence into one

2 min
FundingHardware
High-resolution macro shot of a computer CPU chip with gold pins against a blue background.
AI Infrastructure

Anthropic starts designing its own AI chips as Claude demand tightens the hardware race

Anthropic is assembling a custom silicon team to design its own AI chips, the Claude maker confirmed to TechCrunch on August 5. The company says it plans to co-design hardware and models so Claude can run faster and more efficiently. The decision is a direct response to an uncomfortable scaling problem: demand for Claude is rising while every major AI company is competing for the same limited pool of accelerators, advanced packaging and data-centre capacity. Anthropic already has hardware acce

2 min
AnthropicHardware
Abstract futuristic processor representing custom AI silicon
AI Infrastructure

Anthropic Moves Toward Custom Silicon for Claude

Anthropic is building an in-house team to design custom chips for its Claude AI models, a move that takes the company deeper into the hardware stack as inference costs and capacity become strategic constraints. The company confirmed the plan on Wednesday after a job listing sought engineers who have shipped silicon. Reuters reported the announcement. The effort is not a claim that Anthropic will immediately replace Nvidia or become a chip manufacturer. The company is hiring engineers to co-des

2 min
AnthropicHardware
Server racks in a modern data centre
AI Infrastructure

Runware’s Portable AI Data Centre Bets on Compute Where the Demand Is

Runware is taking aim at one of the least glamorous bottlenecks in AI: there is not enough inference capacity in the places where users need it. The infrastructure company has launched the Sonic Inference Pod, a modular data centre designed to be transported and deployed as a single unit. TechCrunch reports that the system is intended to sit alongside, rather than replace, the huge fixed facilities being built by hyperscalers. The proposition is straightforward. Instead of waiting months or ye

3 min
Enterprise AIHardware
Modern server hardware in a blue-lit data center
AI Infrastructure

New York freezes big AI data-center permits for a year

New York has ordered a one-year statewide halt to permits for proposed hyperscale data centers, becoming the first US state to impose such a pause. The Guardian reports covers facilities with more than 50 megawatts of electrical capacity and directs regulators to write standards for energy, water and environmental effects. The state says the freeze will remain while it considers rules that could make large operators provide their own power or pay more for electricity. Hochul framed the move as

2 min
AI RegulationNews
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AI Infrastructure

Reflection locks in $1 billion of Nebius compute

Open-model startup Reflection AI has signed a $1 billion compute agreement with Nebius, giving it access to Nvidia's latest chips as it trains and serves models. TechCrunch reports that the deal follows a recent arrangement for SpaceX computing resources. Reflection, founded in 2024 by two former Google DeepMind researchers, is valued at $8 billion and has raised nearly $2.6 billion from backers including Nvidia, Sequoia and Lightspeed. Nebius is rapidly becoming a major supplier of scarce AI

2 min
AI ModelsFunding
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AI Infrastructure

Ed Markey Wants Datacenters Treated Like Public-Interest Infrastructure

US senator Ed Markey used a new "AI accountability agenda" on Friday to bundle bills aimed at datacenters, hiring algorithms, child-safety failures and discriminatory automated systems, the Guardian reports. The center of gravity is a draft proposal that would force AI datacenters to secure federal certification before construction. Markey argues the boom is pushing environmental and social costs on to everyone else. His preliminary text would have the FCC weigh air and water quality, noise, e

1 min
AI RegulationNews
Circuit board close-up
AI Infrastructure

AI Data Centre Boom Faces "Pretty Significant Delays" Through 2027, CEO Warns

Applied Digital CEO Wes Cummins told CNBC that historically only about 10% of large-scale industrial construction projects deliver on time, and he expects the AI infrastructure space to see "pretty significant delays through 2026 and 2027," according to 24/7 Wall St. The bottleneck: labour-force constraints that Cummins says "will only intensify from here." The warning lands at a precarious moment. Hyperscaler annual capex references jumped from approximately $400bn to nearly $600bn in just th

2 min
AI data center server room
AI Infrastructure

South Korea Unveils $1 Trillion AI and Semiconductor Investment Blitz

President Lee Jae-myung announced the strategy Monday, flanked by the heads of Samsung and SK Hynix, framing it as a "great leap forward" centred on a "triple axis" of semiconductors, physical AI, and data centres. Samsung and SK Hynix will invest 800 trillion won ($518bn) to build two new chip fabrication sites each in the southwest, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said. SK Group, GS Group, and Naver will commit 550 trillion won ($356bn) to AI data centres. Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon ann

2 min
Semiconductors
Business professionals in a meeting
AI Infrastructure

Qualcomm Acquires Modular for $3.9 Billion in AI Software Platform Play

Qualcomm has confirmed the acquisition of Modular Inc. for approximately $3.9 billion in stock, adding an AI-native software platform that the chipmaker plans to use as a silicon-agnostic compute layer spanning devices, edge, and data centers. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026. Source: Bloomberg Modular, founded by former Google engineers, built a platform designed to make AI development and deployment more efficient across heterogeneous hardware — running the same code

2 min
FundingSemiconductors