# Chips & Compute — AI updates

The silicon behind AI: GPUs, custom accelerators, memory, fabs, and the supply chain — and geopolitics — that powers every model.

- [AMD unveils workstation with dual MI350P AI accelerators](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/amd-unveils-workstation-with-dual-mi350p-ai-accelerators-38d28d) (2026-09-04, Tom's Hardware): AMD's new Threadripper Halo Station pairs a 96-core Zen 5 Threadripper CPU with dual liquid-cooled MI350P accelerators (expandable to four) and 2TB of DDR5 memory. AMD says the system can run trillion-parameter models locally.
- [DeepSeek plans 160,000-chip Huawei cluster in China](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/deepseek-plans-160-000-chip-huawei-cluster-in-china-cfb1a2) (2026-09-04, The Decoder): DeepSeek intends to deploy 160,000 Huawei Ascend-950DT chips at a data center in Inner Mongolia, dedicated to inference rather than training. It would be the largest known Huawei chip cluster, though production constraints mean Huawei likely can't deliver the full order for over a year.
- [Nscale signs $3.5 billion compute deal with robotics firm Figure](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nscale-signs-3-5-billion-compute-deal-with-robotics-firm-figure-c9f746) (2026-09-04, Data Center Dynamics): Cloud compute provider Nscale signed a $3.5 billion agreement to supply computing capacity to robotics company Figure, with the deal potentially expanding to $6 billion. The agreement covers compute infrastructure rather than a specific product announcement.
- [Broadcom says AI chip demand drove a strong quarter, expects more growth](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/broadcom-says-ai-chip-demand-drove-a-strong-quarter-expects-more-growth-a924c8) (2026-09-04, Data Center Dynamics): Broadcom reported a strong third quarter driven by AI silicon demand, including its custom AI accelerator business, and said it expects that growth to keep 'double-doubling.' Its VMware software unit continued to perform steadily alongside the chip business.
- [Flex buys data-center power maker EPC Power for $4.4 billion](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/flex-buys-data-center-power-maker-epc-power-for-4-4-billion-51dbc4) (2026-09-04, Data Center Dynamics): Manufacturing giant Flex is acquiring EPC Power, a developer of 800-volt power conversion architecture used in data centers, in a deal worth $4.4 billion.
- [Microsoft breaks out Azure earnings separately for the first time](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/microsoft-breaks-out-azure-earnings-separately-for-the-first-time-7899f8) (2026-09-04, Data Center Dynamics): Microsoft has started reporting Azure's financial results on their own instead of folding them into its broader 'intelligent cloud' segment, adjusting its financial reporting practices accordingly.
- [Nvidia's PAIR spreads local AI compute across home devices](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-s-pair-spreads-local-ai-compute-across-home-devices-b58b73) (2026-09-04, The Decoder): Nvidia's Personal AI Router (PAIR) automatically distributes local AI requests across every available device on a home network. Nvidia says this cuts wait times for parallel agent tasks.
- [Court rules Chinese chipmaker CXMT stole Samsung's DRAM tech](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/court-rules-chinese-chipmaker-cxmt-stole-samsung-s-dram-tech-a7e2c9) (2026-09-04, Tom's Hardware): A South Korean court found that Chinese memory maker CXMT's "Project Hefei" used a stolen 620-step manufacturing recipe from Samsung. The ruling is tied to CXMT's rise to roughly 10% global DRAM market share.
- [Anthropic signs $35 billion cloud deal with Lambda](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/anthropic-signs-35-billion-cloud-deal-with-lambda-e9d308) (2026-09-03, The Decoder): Anthropic has signed a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, an Nvidia-backed cloud provider, to expand infrastructure for Claude. The agreement significantly scales up Anthropic's committed compute capacity.
- [TSMC's fab equipment demand nearly doubles as AI drives expansion](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/tsmc-s-fab-equipment-demand-nearly-doubles-as-ai-drives-expansion-8049fc) (2026-09-03, Tom's Hardware): TSMC's fab equipment requirements have nearly doubled over the past eight months as AI chip demand drives an unprecedented expansion in manufacturing capacity, pushing 2026 capital expenditure toward roughly $64 billion. That capex figure rose only about 15% year-over-year despite the surge in equipment needs, pointing to tool shortages across the supply chain.
- [Altman warns of "unsustainable silliness" in AI data center buildout](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/altman-warns-of-unsustainable-silliness-in-ai-data-center-buildout-3e2439) (2026-09-03, The Decoder): OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the global AI data center buildout shows "unsustainable silliness," warning that many neocloud providers are announcing massive new capacity without confirmed customers to fill it. He acknowledged that falling compute costs could turn today's billion-dollar infrastructure bets into losses, even for OpenAI.
- [Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-to-acquire-hugging-face-for-12-9-billion-1d3534) (2026-09-03, TechCrunch): Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the platform hosting over 3 million AI models and used by more than 18 million developers, for $12.93 billion. The deal brings one of the most widely used open-source AI model and dataset hosting platforms under the ownership of the world's largest AI chipmaker.
- [Analyst: China's EUV lithography trails ASML's 2004-era tech](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/analyst-china-s-euv-lithography-trails-asml-s-2004-era-tech-fe2ce6) (2026-09-02, Tom's Hardware): An industry analyst assesses that China's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology remains far behind Western equipment makers, comparing its current state to where ASML stood in 2004. The analysis pushes back on rumors that Chinese toolmakers can already produce immersion lithography scanners in volume.
- [Lambda raises $1 billion in debt to buy Nvidia GPUs for Microsoft](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/lambda-raises-1-billion-in-debt-to-buy-nvidia-gpus-for-microsoft-329e0b) (2026-09-01, Data Center Dynamics): Cloud provider Lambda reportedly secured $1 billion in private debt financing to purchase Nvidia GPUs. The GPUs will reportedly be leased to Microsoft.
- [Nvidia invests $3.5 billion in MediaTek for custom AI chip partnership](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-invests-3-5-billion-in-mediatek-for-custom-ai-chip-partnership-f44f77) (2026-09-01, Tom's Hardware): Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in MediaTek, with MediaTek adopting Nvidia's NVLink Fusion interconnect for its own custom AI accelerators. The partnership also extends to local AI computing and automotive platforms.
- [LG enters chip packaging with new laser imaging machine](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/lg-enters-chip-packaging-with-new-laser-imaging-machine-4b3b96) (2026-08-21, Tom's Hardware): LG has rolled out a laser direct imaging (LDI) lithography machine for chip packaging and high-density PCBs, a maskless process that trades some resolution for higher throughput. It arrives as TSMC's CoWoS advanced-packaging capacity, used to package AI accelerators like Nvidia's GPUs, remains constrained.
- [Enterprise SSD prices surge as storage supply sells out through 2027](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/enterprise-ssd-prices-surge-as-storage-supply-sells-out-through-2027-a25aeb) (2026-08-21, Tom's Hardware): A 30TB TLC enterprise SSD now costs about $22,600, roughly 6.5 times its price a year ago, and enterprise SSDs are now priced about 18.6 times higher than equivalent hard drives. Hard drive supply is reportedly sold out through 2027.
- [Waymo builds its own chip, cutting reliance on Nvidia](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/waymo-builds-its-own-chip-cutting-reliance-on-nvidia-569234) (2026-08-21, The Decoder): Waymo has developed its own custom chip for its robotaxi fleet, reducing its dependence on Nvidia hardware. The move follows a broader industry pattern of AI-heavy companies building in-house silicon rather than relying solely on third-party GPU suppliers.
- [Nvidia H200 GPUs begin reaching China under new export licenses](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-h200-gpus-begin-reaching-china-under-new-export-licenses-a0fbee) (2026-08-21, Tom's Hardware): Nvidia's H200 AI GPUs are now entering China under case-by-case US export licenses, with each company's allowance reportedly capped around 100,000 units, most of which must stay outside mainland China. Domestically made Chinese AI chips have already gained significant ground in the local market despite the opening.
- [Micron commits $10 billion to new US chip research labs](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/micron-commits-10-billion-to-new-us-chip-research-labs-636cd0) (2026-08-21, Tom's Hardware): Micron is investing $10 billion in a new Research Labs hub in Boise, Idaho, targeting technologies beyond current DRAM and NAND memory as well as advanced packaging. The labs will combine Micron's internal research with work from customers, partners, universities, startups, and government organizations.
- [Supermicro fires staff after $2.5B AI chip smuggling probe](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/supermicro-fires-staff-after-2-5b-ai-chip-smuggling-probe-b1ac46) (2026-08-21, Tom's Hardware): An independent investigation into Supermicro's alleged diversion of restricted AI chips to China found no wrongdoing by senior management, but the company fired employees in sales, technical support, and business development for policy violations. The probe covered roughly $2.5 billion in transactions and concluded Supermicro's financial statements remain reliable.
- [Memory chip prices have jumped 500% in a year](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/memory-chip-prices-have-jumped-500-in-a-year-731bac) (2026-08-19, Latent Space): AI-driven demand has pushed memory chip prices up roughly 500% over the past 12 months, according to industry newsletter coverage. The report describes the current memory crunch as reversing Moore's Law-style cost trends back to 2007 levels.
- [China develops its own circular AI financing scheme, report finds](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-develops-its-own-circular-ai-financing-scheme-report-finds-eaff66) (2026-08-20, The Decoder): A Financial Times report found much of the demand for Unitree Robotics' humanoid robots comes from state-backed training centers that buy the machines and then sell the resulting training data back to Unitree. Unitree's shares rose 460% in its Shanghai IPO, valuing the company at around $50 billion.
- [SK hynix to pay staff $50,000 each from AI memory profit boom](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/sk-hynix-to-pay-staff-50-000-each-from-ai-memory-profit-boom-5143c7) (2026-08-20, Tom's Hardware): SK hynix reached a tentative agreement to remove the 10% cap on its operating-profit employee bonus pool, giving each worker roughly $50,000 from a $1.79 billion profit-sharing pool split between cash and stock. The deal follows a labor dispute at the company.
- [Virginia county reins in data center expansion after backlash](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/virginia-county-reins-in-data-center-expansion-after-backlash-c2b319) (2026-08-20, Tom's Hardware): Loudoun County, Virginia -- home to more than 250 data centers -- changed its zoning rules so new data center projects must go through a public approval process, ending 25 years of largely automatic approvals. The county had previously treated data centers as ordinary office parks under its zoning code.
- [OVHcloud to raise dedicated server prices up to 87% on RAM costs](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/ovhcloud-to-raise-dedicated-server-prices-up-to-87-on-ram-costs-3832ed) (2026-08-20, Data Center Dynamics): French cloud provider OVHcloud will hike dedicated server prices by as much as 87% starting in September, citing a spike in memory (RAM) costs. The company is calling the situation "RAMaggedon."
- [Court: China's CXMT used stolen Samsung DRAM technology](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/court-china-s-cxmt-used-stolen-samsung-dram-technology-698681) (2026-08-20, Tom's Hardware): A South Korean court case found that a former Samsung engineer stole process technology for the company's 18-nanometer dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) manufacturing and sold it to Chinese memory maker CXMT. The engineer is reportedly now in custody.
- [China's SMIC posts record $3B quarter, hikes wafer prices](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-s-smic-posts-record-3b-quarter-hikes-wafer-prices-68a86e) (2026-08-20, Tom's Hardware): Chinese foundry SMIC reported its first-ever $3 billion quarterly revenue, up 36.1% year-over-year, with net profit nearly tripling to $479.2 million. The company also raised wafer prices as US export sanctions push more domestic chip demand its way.
- [Nebius seeks to raise $4.5B through a bond offering](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nebius-seeks-to-raise-4-5b-through-a-bond-offering-8fe60a) (2026-08-19, Data Center Dynamics): AI cloud company Nebius is looking to raise $4.5 billion by issuing bonds in two series of senior notes.
- [Cerebras unveils CS-4 system built on a 4-trillion-transistor chip](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/cerebras-unveils-cs-4-system-built-on-a-4-trillion-transistor-chip-41d035) (2026-08-19, Data Center Dynamics): Cerebras announced its CS-4 rack-scale system powered by the WSE-3T wafer-scale chip, which the company says delivers 750 petaflops of AI compute. It extends Cerebras's wafer-scale approach as an alternative to GPU clusters.
- [Samsung raises foundry prices up to 15% as AI demand fills capacity](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/samsung-raises-foundry-prices-up-to-15-as-ai-demand-fills-capacity-04a880) (2026-08-19, Tom's Hardware): Samsung reportedly raised prices on new orders across its 4nm, 5nm, and 8nm foundry processes in July, with increases of up to 15%. Chinese customers reportedly accepted the largest hikes.
- [Ukraine says it found Nvidia Jetson hardware in a Russian missile](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/ukraine-says-it-found-nvidia-jetson-hardware-in-a-russian-missile-050a8a) (2026-08-19, Data Center Dynamics): Ukrainian officials say components from Nvidia's Jetson edge-AI hardware were recovered from a Russian S-71M missile. They are calling for stronger sanctions enforcement to keep such parts from reaching Russia.
- [First Nvidia H200 chips reach China as Beijing eases import block](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/first-nvidia-h200-chips-reach-china-as-beijing-eases-import-block-dfba63) (2026-08-19, Tom's Hardware): ByteDance and Tencent have received their first shipments of Nvidia H200 chips as Beijing loosens its prior block on importing US-licensed AI chips. However, Beijing reportedly wants most of each company's licensed allowance, up to 100,000 units apiece, kept in Hong Kong, which lacks the power infrastructure to run them.
- [Taiwan to pay every resident $314 from AI server boom windfall](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/taiwan-to-pay-every-resident-314-from-ai-server-boom-windfall-7d9fd8) (2026-08-19, Tom's Hardware): Taiwan will give roughly $314 in cash to every resident next year, funded by a $7.4 billion dividend in the 2027 central government budget. President Lai Ching-te tied the payout to the AI server boom, citing 11% GDP growth and a $903 billion export surge.
- [Japan's Ajinomoto cuts chip packaging film supply to China](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/japan-s-ajinomoto-cuts-chip-packaging-film-supply-to-china-6dbbea) (2026-08-19, Tom's Hardware): Ajinomoto has reportedly told mainland Chinese customers it will cut supply of ABF (Ajinomoto Build-up Film), a material used in advanced chip packaging, by 30%. The move follows Beijing's recent rare earth export curbs, with Chinese firms racing to qualify domestic substitutes.
- [Nvidia leads $500B plan to make compute an asset class](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-leads-500b-plan-to-make-compute-an-asset-class-6a3e0d) (2026-08-19, The Verge): Nvidia is working with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to structure roughly $500 billion in financing that treats GPU compute as a tradeable, revenue-generating asset class. CEO Jensen Huang framed the chips as long-lived, fungible, productive assets rather than depreciating IT hardware.
- [Agentic AI workloads are driving a surge in CPU demand](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/agentic-ai-workloads-are-driving-a-surge-in-cpu-demand-4ca521) (2026-08-16, IEEE Spectrum): AWS reportedly told engineers to conserve CPU cycles after an explosion in wait times for CPU server capacity, driven largely by agentic AI workloads rather than the GPU and memory shortages that dominated earlier AI infrastructure buildout. Analysts point to agentic systems spawning many sub-agents, which multiplies orchestration and non-GPU compute needs at enterprise scale.
- [ByteDance and Tsinghua train an RL agent to write faster GPU kernels](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/bytedance-and-tsinghua-train-an-rl-agent-to-write-faster-gpu-kernels-0f74e4) (2026-08-18, MarkTechPost): ByteDance Seed and Tsinghua AIR released CUDA Agent, a large-scale agentic reinforcement learning (RL) system that trains a language model to write GPU kernels that outperform standard compiler output. The target gap is narrow: frontier models already write correct CUDA code, they just write slow CUDA, and the base model (Seed1.6) already passes 74.0% of tasks correctly on KernelBench before RL training.
- [Modular's Mojo programming language is now open source](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/modular-s-mojo-programming-language-is-now-open-source-79b37f) (2026-08-18, Simon Willison): Modular has open-sourced Mojo, its programming language designed as a high-performance alternative to Python for AI and machine learning workloads.
- [Nvidia's TensorRT Model Connect turns checkpoints into C++ inference](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-s-tensorrt-model-connect-turns-checkpoints-into-c-inference-2af09c) (2026-08-18, MarkTechPost): Nvidia released TensorRT Model Connect (TRTMC) in public preview, an Apache-2.0 tool that converts a Hugging Face or local model checkpoint directly into native C++ inference in two commands, with no intermediate ONNX export step. It ships a July 29, 2026 GB300 snapshot covering 105 release profiles across 76 model families.
- [AI chip startup Etched's valuation doubles to $21B in a month](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/ai-chip-startup-etched-s-valuation-doubles-to-21b-in-a-month-aa1680) (2026-08-18, TechCrunch): AI chip startup Etched saw its valuation double to $21 billion within a month. Jane Street, which installed Etched's first shipped AI cluster system, was impressed enough to lead the new funding round.
- [China's own AI chips seen supplying 90% of home market](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-s-own-ai-chips-seen-supplying-90-of-home-market-300d32) (2026-08-18, Tom's Hardware): Analysts project Chinese-made AI accelerators, led by Huawei and Cambricon, will supply about 90% of China's domestic AI processor market in 2026. This marks a sharp shift away from reliance on Nvidia and AMD chips.
- [DRAM prices up to 10x amid AI-driven memory shortage](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/dram-prices-up-to-10x-amid-ai-driven-memory-shortage-08a151) (2026-08-17, Tom's Hardware): DDR5 memory prices have climbed as much as 500% over the past 12 months, with some configurations now up to 10 times the lowest prices ever recorded. A 128GB DDR5 kit now costs $3,399, driven largely by AI-related demand for memory chips.
- [OpenAI signs 20-year, 8GW Ohio data center lease backed by Nvidia](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/openai-signs-20-year-8gw-ohio-data-center-lease-backed-by-nvidia-63c155) (2026-08-17, The Decoder): OpenAI signed a 20-year lease for an 8-gigawatt data center in Ohio. Nvidia is guaranteeing up to $105 billion for the residual value of the facilities and becomes the exclusive chip supplier for the site. The Wall Street Journal reports nine tech companies now hold roughly $3 trillion in AI infrastructure commitments that don't appear on any balance sheet.
- [Groq raises $350M, pivots from AI chips to neocloud](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/groq-raises-350m-pivots-from-ai-chips-to-neocloud-40262d) (2026-08-17, TechCrunch): Groq raised $350 million at a $3.5 billion valuation. The company, known for its custom AI inference chips, is shifting toward a neocloud business model and expanding its Nvidia-powered data center footprint.
- [Nvidia reportedly in talks to invest $3B in SB Energy for OpenAI campus](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-reportedly-in-talks-to-invest-3b-in-sb-energy-for-openai-campus-784e56) (2026-08-17, Data Center Dynamics): Nvidia is reportedly considering investing up to $3 billion in SB Energy to help build power infrastructure for a data center campus in Ohio that could scale up to 10 gigawatts. The campus is intended to support OpenAI's compute buildout.
- [Nvidia halves OpenAI data center pledge as Anthropic revenue doubles](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-halves-openai-data-center-pledge-as-anthropic-revenue-doubles-7ff262) (2026-08-15, The Decoder): Nvidia cut its financial guarantee for OpenAI's planned Ohio data center from $250 billion to just under $120 billion after investor pushback. In the same period, Anthropic's quarterly revenue jumped from $4.7 billion to $11.5 billion.
- [Google reportedly taps AMD to co-design next-gen TPU](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/google-reportedly-taps-amd-to-co-design-next-gen-tpu-04c8f3) (2026-08-16, Tom's Hardware): Tom's Hardware reports Google may be working with AMD on its next-generation TPU, potentially integrating on-package CPU cores aimed at agentic and reinforcement-learning workloads. The report is based on a rumor, not an official announcement.
- [Ukraine says Russian missile uses Nvidia AI chip for guidance](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/ukraine-says-russian-missile-uses-nvidia-ai-chip-for-guidance-4dd66a) (2026-08-14, Tom's Hardware): Ukrainian intelligence claims Russia's new S-71 "Monochrome" cruise missile uses Nvidia Jetson Orin NX modules, reportedly for terminal guidance, according to Tom's Hardware. The claim has not been independently verified.
- [OpenAI's Ultrafast mode runs GPT-5.6 Sol 14x faster](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/openai-s-ultrafast-mode-runs-gpt-5-6-sol-14x-faster-7bd0be) (2026-08-13, OpenAI): OpenAI is previewing "Ultrafast," a new API service tier that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14 times faster than standard, powered by Cerebras hardware. It delivers up to 750 output tokens per second.
- [China's CXMT becomes most valuable Chinese company at $524B](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-s-cxmt-becomes-most-valuable-chinese-company-at-524b-f8d632) (2026-08-13, Tom's Hardware): Memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) overtook Tencent to become China's most valuable company, reaching a $524 billion valuation just 17 days after its IPO.
- [Lightmatter leads 19-company push to standardize photonics](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/lightmatter-leads-19-company-push-to-standardize-photonics-69c8b2) (2026-08-13, Data Center Dynamics): Lightmatter launched an industry initiative with 19 companies to standardize infrastructure for silicon-photonics-ready data centers, accompanied by a 300-page whitepaper.
- [Cerebras stock drops 20% as hardware sales fall despite AI cloud growth](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/cerebras-stock-drops-20-as-hardware-sales-fall-despite-ai-cloud-growth-0e9b73) (2026-08-13, Tom's Hardware): Cerebras shares fell nearly 20% after the company missed earnings expectations. Hardware sales declined even as the company's AI cloud revenue grew 281% year-over-year.
- [PJM grid operator reviews data center rules after 4GW outage](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/pjm-grid-operator-reviews-data-center-rules-after-4gw-outage-ce056e) (2026-08-13, Data Center Dynamics): PJM, the grid operator serving a large part of the eastern US, is considering changes to interconnection reliability requirements for data centers after an outage that originated in Northern Virginia knocked roughly 4GW of data center load offline.
- [China's YMTC cracks top-3 NAND makers as AI demand reshapes market](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-s-ymtc-cracks-top-3-nand-makers-as-ai-demand-reshapes-market-2d84a9) (2026-08-12, Tom's Hardware): YMTC has become the world's third-largest NAND flash maker with 14% market share, behind Samsung (25%) and SK hynix (22%), and ahead of Micron. The report attributes the shift partly to AI servers, which now account for 48% of all flash storage demand.
- [Nvidia targets trillion-parameter scale with next Nemotron model](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/nvidia-targets-trillion-parameter-scale-with-next-nemotron-model-fa5810) (2026-08-12, The Decoder): Nvidia is developing Nemotron 4, a new open-weight model reportedly aiming for roughly one trillion parameters. The scale would put it in the same range as some large models already released by Chinese labs.
- [Silicon photonics becomes a flashpoint in US-China chip policy](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/silicon-photonics-becomes-a-flashpoint-in-us-china-chip-policy-f5ed48) (2026-08-12, Tom's Hardware): Optical interconnects and silicon photonics have emerged as a critical, fast-growing component in AI data centers, used to move data between GPU clusters at high speed. Ahead of a US-China summit, the US reportedly wants to exclude Chinese-made optical transceivers from future AI data centers, but China currently dominates the photonics supply chain.
- [IBM and Together AI sign $240M Nvidia GPU cloud deal](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/ibm-and-together-ai-sign-240m-nvidia-gpu-cloud-deal-854a69) (2026-08-12, Data Center Dynamics): IBM and Together AI signed a $240 million deal to deploy Nvidia HGX B300 GPU clusters for cloud AI compute. The cluster is expected to go live in Q1 2027.
- [Data center demand doubled year-over-year, JLL finds](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/data-center-demand-doubled-year-over-year-jll-finds-f5c1d0) (2026-08-12, Data Center Dynamics): A JLL report found data center absorption hit a record 25 gigawatts in the first half of 2026, roughly double the prior year and above expectations. The growth reflects continued build-out driven largely by AI compute demand.
- [CoreWeave keeps 2020-era Nvidia GPUs profitable, signs A100 deals to 2029](https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/coreweave-keeps-2020-era-nvidia-gpus-profitable-signs-a100-deals-to-2029-6af418) (2026-08-12, Tom's Hardware): CoreWeave reported $2.58 billion in quarterly revenue, up 112% year over year, and says its Nvidia A100 GPUs deployed in 2020 remain profitable nine years later. The company has signed A100 contracts extending into 2029.

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