Tag

Hardware

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AI Infrastructure

OpenAI's Compute Strategy Turns Data Centres Into the Product

OpenAI is now describing its compute strategy as an integrated system rather than a pile of rented capacity. In a post published on 25 August, the company set out a stack spanning data centres and chips, frontier models, its developer platform and consumer products. The argument is simple: progress compounds faster when every layer improves with the others. OpenAI's account of the full stack is also a declaration that infrastructure has become a product decision. That framing matters because t

2 min
HardwareNews
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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
Illuminated server racks in a modern data centre
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
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
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Funding

SK Hynix Turns the AI Chip Frenzy Into a $26.5 Billion Cash Call

SK Hynix priced its US listing on Friday to raise $26.5bn, turning investor appetite for AI infrastructure into one of the biggest stock sales on record, the Guardian reports. The chipmaker is selling about 18 million Nasdaq-listed depositary shares at $149 each after the deal was reportedly more than seven times oversubscribed. The memory specialist has become one of the clearest financial winners from the datacenter build-out because it supplies high-bandwidth memory used alongside Nvidia ac

1 min
HardwareNvidia
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Hardware

Apple’s Hardware Counterpunch to OpenAI Gets Messy Fast

Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, alleging the ChatGPT maker raided its hardware operation for confidential product information as it pushed into devices, the Guardian reports. Apple says former staff were persuaded to share unreleased designs, supplier details and other internal material tied to future products. The complaint names OpenAI hardware chief Tang Yew Tan, formerly an Apple vice-president, and another ex-Apple employee, Chang Liu. Apple says Tan pushed candidates to bring real component

1 min
NewsOpenAI
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Enterprise AI

Apple Vision Pro Chief Paul Meade Defects to OpenAI's Hardware Team

Paul Meade, the Apple vice president who led the Vision Pro headset and the company's smart glasses efforts, is leaving to join OpenAI's hardware unit, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The departure continues a streak of high-profile defections from Apple to rivals in the AI and hardware sectors. Source: TechCrunch Meade is expected to leave Apple within the week and will work on OpenAI's upcoming family of AI-powered devices. The move comes as Apple's costly Vision Pro struggled to find

2 min
HardwareOpenAI
Microchip and circuit board closeup
Hardware

OpenAI Unveils Jalapeño, Its First Custom AI Chip — and It's a Direct Shot at Nvidia

OpenAI has unveiled its first custom-built AI inference processor, developed in partnership with Broadcom and named Jalapeño, according to TechCrunch. The chip went from initial design to manufacturing in just nine months, and early test results show significantly better performance-per-watt than current alternatives, Business Today reports. Jalapeño is designed specifically for LLM inference — the process of running pre-trained models in response to user queries — rather than the far more com

2 min
NvidiaOpenAI