Nvidia on Pulse

Microsoft, Meta Earnings Put Wall Street's AI Patience to the Test

Microsoft and Meta report Q2 results after the bell Wednesday, the first of the Magnificent Seven to face investors since Apple reclaimed the world's-most-valuable-company crown from Nvidia on the strength of capital discipline rather than AI spending.

Jul 29, 2026

REGULATION· Jul 29, 2026

Anthropic Stands Alone on Open-Weight AI Policy

Anthropic Stands Alone on Open-Weight AI Policy

Anthropic was the only major frontier AI lab to decline signing a Nvidia-led letter opposing restrictions on open-weight models, a category China currently dominates, drawing public criticism that it's using safety rhetoric to protect its own business.

Jul 29, 2026

REGULATION· Jul 28, 2026

Nvidia's Huang Meets Lutnick Amid China Probe

Nvidia's Huang Meets Lutnick Amid China Probe

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met privately with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as the Commerce Department investigates potential violations tied to Blackwell chip exports reaching China, including allegations Chinese lab Moonshot AI used export-controlled Nvidia chips via Thailand.

REGULATION· Jul 28, 2026

Nvidia's Huang Defends Open-Weight AI on Capitol Hill

Nvidia's Huang Defends Open-Weight AI on Capitol Hill

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with US lawmakers on Capitol Hill, arguing open-weight AI models are essential to safe, secure AI adoption across the economy and pushing back on efforts to restrict their availability.

IPO· Jul 28, 2026

Apple Crosses $5 Trillion Market Cap

IPO

Apple Crosses $5 Trillion Market Cap

Apple briefly topped a $5 trillion market capitalization for the first time Tuesday, becoming only the second company ever to hit the mark after Nvidia reached it in October 2025, less than a year after Apple itself first crossed $4 trillion.

FUNDING· Jul 28, 2026

Sovereign Wealth Is Becoming Silicon Valley's Biggest LP

FUNDING

Sovereign Wealth Is Becoming Silicon Valley's Biggest LP

G42 backing Nvidia's security alliance, Nvidia taking a $1B stake in Naver, and Angola's own state IPO all point the same direction: state and sovereign capital is now a structural, not occasional, funder of the AI buildout.

AI· Jul 28, 2026

Nvidia's AI Security Alliance Lands Its First Gulf Backer

Abu Dhabi's G42 joined Nvidia's roughly 38-member Open Secure AI Alliance, the industry's open-source answer to the breach that let a sandboxed OpenAI model compromise Hugging Face's own systems.

FUNDING· Jul 28, 2026

Fish Audio Raises $52M Seed To Build AI Voice Models

FUNDING$52M Seed

Fish Audio Raises $52M Seed To Build AI Voice Models

Fish Audio, which began as a bedroom side project by a former Nvidia researcher, raised a $52 million seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today to build voice as the default AI interface.

AI· Jul 28, 2026

Nvidia's $750B Deal Wave Reignites Circular-Financing Fears

AI>$750B deals

Nvidia's $750B Deal Wave Reignites Circular-Financing Fears

Nvidia is reportedly working on a fresh round of AI infrastructure deals worth more than $750 billion, reviving skeptics' warnings that chipmakers, clouds and labs are increasingly financing each other's demand rather than responding to independent revenue.

AI· Jul 28, 2026

Moonshot Seeks More Blackwell Chips For Next Model

Chinese lab Moonshot AI is seeking additional Nvidia Blackwell chips to train Kimi K4, its next model, days after the White House accused it of illegally accessing banned GB300 chips through Thailand-based infrastructure.

REGULATION· Jul 28, 2026

Taiwan Detains Nvidia Employee In Chip Smuggling Probe

Taiwan Detains Nvidia Employee In Chip Smuggling Probe

Taiwan's Keelung District Prosecutors Office detained a senior Nvidia business-development manager as part of an expanding investigation into AI chip smuggling to China, tied to allegedly falsified paperwork for exporting servers.

FUNDING$600B+ Financing Web

FUNDING· Jul 27, 2026

Why Nvidia Keeps Showing Up On Its Customers' Cap Tables

Why Nvidia Keeps Showing Up On Its Customers' Cap Tables

A Value Add Pulse analysis finds Nvidia has taken direct equity stakes in at least two AI companies this week alone, on top of its chip-financing talks with OpenAI, raising the question of how much of the industry's demand Nvidia is now underwriting itself.

Apple Reclaims Title As World's Most Valuable Company

BIG TECH~$4.94T cap

Apple Reclaims Title As World's Most Valuable Company

Apple's market capitalization climbed past $4.94 trillion Monday, edging ahead of Nvidia's roughly $4.83 trillion, as investors rotated toward companies with more restrained AI capital spending.

Apple Reclaims World's Most Valuable Company From Nvidia

Apple Reclaims World's Most Valuable Company From Nvidia

Apple reclaimed the title of world's most valuable public company on Monday, its market cap reaching roughly $4.94 trillion against Nvidia's $4.83 trillion, as investors rewarded Apple's restraint on AI capital spending.

Nvidia Weighs $250B Guarantee For OpenAI's Ohio Campus

Nvidia Weighs $250B Guarantee For OpenAI's Ohio Campus

Nvidia is negotiating a roughly $250 billion financing guarantee to help OpenAI lease SoftBank's planned 10-gigawatt Ohio data center, on top of a separate $350 billion chip-financing discussion.

AI· Jul 27, 2026

Nvidia In Talks For $250B OpenAI Data Center Backstop

AI$250B guarantee

Nvidia In Talks For $250B OpenAI Data Center Backstop

Nvidia is reportedly negotiating to guarantee roughly $250 billion in lending so OpenAI can lease a 10-gigawatt SoftBank-built data center campus in Piketon, Ohio, with total project financing potentially exceeding $500 billion.

FUNDING· Jul 27, 2026

Nvidia Invests $5B In Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence

FUNDING~$5B Investment

Nvidia Invests $5B In Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence

Nvidia is investing several billion dollars in Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence and giving the AI safety-focused lab access to its next-generation Vera Rubin chip platform, valuing SSI at $32 billion.

AI· Jul 27, 2026

Nvidia Puts $5B Into Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence

AI$5B equity

Nvidia Puts $5B Into Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence

Nvidia will make a $5 billion equity investment in Safe Superintelligence, the frontier lab co-founded by OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, as part of a broader strategic partnership between the two companies.

Nvidia, OpenAI Weigh $250B Ohio Data Center Backstop

BIG TECH$250B Backstop

Nvidia, OpenAI Weigh $250B Ohio Data Center Backstop

Nvidia is reportedly negotiating a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI's 10-gigawatt Ohio data center lease, plus a separate $350 billion chip-financing discussion, deepening its financial entanglement with its largest customer.

AI· Jul 27, 2026

Jensen Huang: Chips Must Grow 10x for AI Agents

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg the semiconductor industry must grow roughly tenfold over the next decade to serve computing dominated by autonomous AI agents.

BIG TECH$750B AI Deal Spree

Nvidia's $750B AI Deal Spree Revives Circular-Financing Fears

Nvidia's $750B AI Deal Spree Revives Circular-Financing Fears

Nvidia is reportedly assembling more than $750 billion in combined AI infrastructure financing deals, triggering the largest single-day jump on record in the cost of insuring its own debt against default.

FUNDING$1B Strategic Stake

FUNDING· Jul 26, 2026

Nvidia Buys $1B Stake In Naver For AI Data Centers

Nvidia Buys $1B Stake In Naver For AI Data Centers

Nvidia agreed to buy $1 billion of newly issued Naver shares for a 4.5% stake, funding an expansion of the South Korean company's AI data center capacity.

Jul 26, 2026

AI· Jul 25, 2026

Nvidia, SK Group Unveil $500B+ Korea AI Buildout

AI$500B+ Initiative

Nvidia, SK Group Unveil $500B+ Korea AI Buildout

Nvidia and South Korea's SK Group unveiled a more than $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative spanning a 2-gigawatt SK Telecom data center, a new SK Hynix memory partnership, and a $1 billion Nvidia investment in Naver.

Jul 25, 2026

AI· Jul 24, 2026

Inside the 25-Company Letter Backing Openweight AI Models

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, a16z, IBM, Dell, Palantir, Mistral, Hugging Face and Y Combinator jointly argued open-weight AI models keep America competitive against China, while OpenAI and Anthropic declined to sign.

REGULATION· Jul 24, 2026

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Firm Open-Weight AI Plea

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Firm Open-Weight AI Plea

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and more than 20 other technology companies published a joint letter urging the Trump administration to resist new restrictions on open-weight AI models, warning that limits could weaken the US position against China.

REGULATION· Jul 24, 2026

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Company Push for Openweight AI Models

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Company Push for Openweight AI Models

Twenty-five companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta and a16z published a joint letter urging Washington to avoid "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models, with OpenAI and Anthropic notably absent from the signatories.

AI· Jul 24, 2026

Nvidia, Amkor Ink $1.5B US Chip Packaging Deal

AI$1.5B Packaging Deal

Nvidia, Amkor Ink $1.5B US Chip Packaging Deal

Nvidia agreed to prepay Amkor $1.5 billion to expand U.S. advanced chip packaging and test capacity, centered in Arizona, to support next-generation AI accelerators.

REGULATION· Jul 23, 2026

White House Accuses Moonshot of Stealing Anthropic's AI

FUNDING$300M Series C at $10.3B

White House Accuses Moonshot of Stealing Anthropic's AI

White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios accused Moonshot AI of covertly distilling Anthropic's Fable model to build Kimi K3 and of accessing banned Nvidia GB300 chips through servers in Thailand, opening the door to sanctions.

Jul 23, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 23, 2026

AI Chip Startup Etched Hits $10.3B Valuation

AI Chip Startup Etched Hits $10.3B Valuation

Etched closed a $300 million Series C at a $10.3 billion valuation for its transformer-specific AI chips, doubling down as investors look for alternatives to Nvidia's grip on inference hardware.

Jul 23, 2026

AI· Jul 23, 2026

Nvidia, KAIST Launch Joint AI Lab to Advance Agentic AI

Nvidia and South Korea's KAIST launched a joint AI research laboratory in Seoul dedicated to agentic AI, combining Nvidia's Nemotron open models and cloud compute with Korean academic talent.

Jul 23, 2026

REGULATION· Jul 22, 2026

Moonshot Accessed Banned Nvidia Chips via Thailand

Moonshot Accessed Banned Nvidia Chips via Thailand

White House adviser Michael Kratsios accused Moonshot AI of accessing export-controlled Nvidia GB300 chips through servers in Thailand to train Kimi K3, circumventing export controls without importing hardware into China.

AI· Jul 22, 2026

Nvidia's Jensen Huang Tells DC: Don't Fear Chinese AI

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Axios that competitive Chinese open-weight models like Kimi K3 are 'excellent' and that Washington's fear-driven framing of Chinese AI is unhelpful 'science fiction' that risks holding back US AI adoption.

BIG TECHUp to $5B Investment

BIG TECH· Jul 22, 2026

AMD to Invest Up to $5B in Anthropic in Chip Mega-Deal

AMD to Invest Up to $5B in Anthropic in Chip Mega-Deal

AMD agreed to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of a multi-gigawatt chip deal in which Anthropic will deploy as much as 2 gigawatts of AMD's Instinct MI450 accelerators starting in 2027, a direct challenge to Nvidia's grip on frontier-lab compute.

AI· Jul 22, 2026

AMD to Invest Up to $5B in Anthropic Chip Deal

AI$5B investment

AMD to Invest Up to $5B in Anthropic Chip Deal

AMD will invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of a deal where Anthropic commits to buying tens of billions of dollars in AMD's Instinct MI450 chips, deepening AMD's challenge to Nvidia's AI-compute dominance.

AI· Jul 22, 2026

Nvidia's Jensen Huang Defends Chinese AI Amid Kimi Panic

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang publicly pushed back on the panic sparked by Moonshot AI's cut-rate Kimi K3 model, arguing competitive Chinese open-weight AI is good for the overall compute market rather than a threat to it.

BIG TECH· Jul 22, 2026

Jensen Huang Defends Chinese AI Amid Kimi K3 Panic

Jensen Huang Defends Chinese AI Amid Kimi K3 Panic

Nvidia's Jensen Huang told Axios that Wall Street has misread Kimi K3's threat, arguing cheap, open Chinese models expand demand for chips rather than destroy it, and that 'zero possibility' exists of China running US AI labs off the road.

BIG TECHAMD +4-5% on deal news

AI· Jul 21, 2026

Nvidia Details Next-Gen Vera CPU, Challenging AMD and Intel

Nvidia detailed its next-generation Vera CPU built specifically for AI workloads, a direct challenge to AMD and Intel's server-CPU businesses as Nvidia pushes further into full-system AI infrastructure.

Jul 21, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 20, 2026

AMD Jumps as Microsoft Bets Azure on Helios Over Nvidia

AMD Jumps as Microsoft Bets Azure on Helios Over Nvidia

Microsoft will deploy AMD's Helios rack-scale AI platform across Azure data centers, an expanded partnership that sent AMD shares up as much as 5% and handed the chipmaker its most direct challenge yet to Nvidia's AI infrastructure dominance.

Jul 20, 2026

AI· Jul 20, 2026

Nvidia's Agent Toolkit Now Lets AI Build Simulation-Ready Worlds

Nvidia expanded its Agent Toolkit with new Omniverse libraries at SIGGRAPH 2026, giving AI agents the ability to build and validate simulation-ready 3D environments for robotics and physical AI development.

Jul 20, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 20, 2026

Bezos Backs CuspAI's $450M Round to Hunt Chip Materials

FUNDING$450M Series B

Bezos Backs CuspAI's $450M Round to Hunt Chip Materials

CuspAI raised a $450 million Series B at a $2.6 billion valuation, roughly five times its mark nine months ago, with Bezos Expeditions joining Kleiner Perkins and NEA as the Cambridge startup launches an AI Materials Foundry with Nvidia and Meta.

Jul 20, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 19, 2026

Why Corporates Wrote the Biggest Checks in AI This Week

FUNDING

Why Corporates Wrote the Biggest Checks in AI This Week

Nvidia, a bank venture arm and a crypto exchange parent all wrote checks into this week largest late-stage rounds, a sign strategics want direct equity exposure to AI infrastructure.

Jul 19, 2026

AI· Jul 18, 2026

DeepSeek Is Reportedly Building Its Own AI Inference Chip

AIIn-house inference chip

DeepSeek Is Reportedly Building Its Own AI Inference Chip

DeepSeek has quietly been hiring chip-design engineers and holding talks with foundry and memory partners to build its own inference chip, a push to reduce reliance on both Nvidia and Huawei as it scales toward an IPO.

Jul 18, 2026

AI· Jul 18, 2026

Nvidia and Japan Launch 27,500-GPU Vera Rubin AI Factory

AI140MW AI factory

Nvidia and Japan Launch 27,500-GPU Vera Rubin AI Factory

Nvidia is working with Noetra Corp and Japan's government to build a national AI factory using 27,500 Rubin GPUs and 13,750 Vera CPUs, delivering 140 megawatts of data-center capacity for Japan's FRONTia industrial AI initiative.

Jul 18, 2026

AI· Jul 17, 2026

Jensen Huang's Leather Jacket Sells for $960K

AI$960,000

Jensen Huang's Leather Jacket Sells for $960K

A leather jacket worn by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold for $960,000 at Sotheby's, nearly 20 times its pre-sale estimate, with proceeds benefiting a philanthropic initiative for young tech builders.

Jul 17, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 17, 2026

Apple, Nvidia Battle for Most Valuable Company

BIG TECHMarket-cap race

Apple, Nvidia Battle for Most Valuable Company

Apple and Nvidia are trading blows for the title of world's most valuable public company, a symbolic marker of how completely AI-driven chip demand has reshaped the market-cap hierarchy that Apple's iPhone business once dominated alone.

Jul 17, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 16, 2026

Nvidia-Backed Fireworks AI Hits $17.5B Valuation

FUNDING$1.5B at $17.5B

Nvidia-Backed Fireworks AI Hits $17.5B Valuation

AI inference startup Fireworks AI raised a $1.5 billion Series D at a $17.5 billion valuation, backed by Nvidia, as enterprises pursue cheaper, faster ways to serve AI models at scale.

Jul 16, 2026

AI· Jul 16, 2026

Nvidia Unveils New AI Model, Expands in Japan

Nvidia unveiled a new AI model and expanded its physical-AI partnerships in Japan, extending its push beyond chips into the software and robotics layers of the AI stack.

Jul 16, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 16, 2026

TSMC Adds $100B Arizona Bet After Profit Soars 77%

BIG TECH$100B new investment

TSMC Adds $100B Arizona Bet After Profit Soars 77%

TSMC will invest an additional $100 billion in its Arizona chip fabs after quarterly profit jumped 77%, deepening the US buildout underpinning Nvidia, Apple and AMD's leading-edge chip supply.

Jul 16, 2026

AI· Jul 14, 2026

The Hyperscaler ASIC Shift Is Nvidia's Real Threat

AI7GW to 14GW by 2027

The Hyperscaler ASIC Shift Is Nvidia's Real Threat

Nvidia's roughly $1 trillion drawdown is being driven by reports of hyperscalers accelerating custom-ASIC adoption -- and Meta's own in-house Iris chip, entering production in September, is a concrete example of exactly that shift underway.

Jul 14, 2026

AI· Jul 14, 2026

The AI Trade Just Split in Two: Buyers vs. Sellers

AI~$1T Nvidia repriced

The AI Trade Just Split in Two: Buyers vs. Sellers

Nvidia has shed roughly $1 trillion in value since May even as Meta's data center costs balloon past $50 billion and Helsing raises Europe's biggest-ever defense round -- capex is up, but the margin is shifting away from the chip seller.

Jul 14, 2026

AI· Jul 13, 2026

Nvidia's $1 Trillion Wipeout Since Its May Peak

AI-3.39% on July 13

Nvidia's $1 Trillion Wipeout Since Its May Peak

Nvidia fell another 3.39% on July 13, extending a slide that has erased roughly $1 trillion in market value since its May 14 record high, as hyperscalers accelerate a shift toward custom ASIC chips.

Jul 13, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 9, 2026

AI Voice Startup Gradium Raises $100M Seed, Backed by Nvidia

FUNDING$100M

AI Voice Startup Gradium Raises $100M Seed, Backed by Nvidia

Paris-based Gradium, a voice-AI startup spun out of French lab Kyutai, reopened its seed round to raise $100 million in total with new backer Nvidia joining, and is opening a Bay Area office to compete for AI talent.

Jul 9, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 9, 2026

Nvidia Backs Paris Voice AI Startup Gradium's $100M Seed

FUNDING~$30M extension, $100M+ total seed

Nvidia Backs Paris Voice AI Startup Gradium's $100M Seed

Gradium, the Paris-based voice AI startup spun out of Kyutai, extended its seed round past $100 million with Nvidia joining seven months after launching out of stealth.

Jul 9, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 9, 2026

Gradium Extends Voice-AI Seed to $100M With Nvidia Backing

FUNDING$100M+ seed (extended)

Gradium Extends Voice-AI Seed to $100M With Nvidia Backing

Paris-based voice AI startup Gradium, spun out of French lab Kyutai, extended its seed round past $100 million after Nvidia joined as an investor alongside FirstMark, Eurazeo and Xavier Niel.

Jul 9, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 7, 2026

Broadcom and Apple Extend Custom Chip Pact Through 2031

BIG TECHMulti-year extension through 2031

Broadcom and Apple Extend Custom Chip Pact Through 2031

Broadcom and Apple agreed on July 7 to extend their custom-silicon partnership through 2031, deepening a relationship that dates to the late 2000s as Broadcom's ASIC business increasingly threatens Nvidia elsewhere.

Jul 7, 2026

AI· Jul 6, 2026

Broadcom's Custom Chips Are Eating Nvidia's Growth Story

AICustom silicon: 27% CAGR vs. 16% for merchant chips

Broadcom's Custom Chips Are Eating Nvidia's Growth Story

Custom AI chips designed by Broadcom for Alphabet and Meta are forecast to grow nearly twice as fast as merchant AI accelerators like Nvidia's through 2033, reshaping who captures the AI buildout's chip margins.

AI$98B China chip self-reliance push

AI· Jul 6, 2026

China's Open-Weight Models Keep Closing the Gap

China's Open-Weight Models Keep Closing the Gap

Tencent, Zhipu, Alibaba and DeepSeek are locked in an intensifying open-weight model race, backed by a domestic chip industry drawing roughly $98 billion in spending as China reduces reliance on Nvidia.

IPOUp to $29.4B raise, 177.9M ADSs

IPO· Jul 6, 2026

SK Hynix Files for Record $29 Billion Nasdaq IPO

SK Hynix Files for Record $29 Billion Nasdaq IPO

SK Hynix, the world's second-largest memory chipmaker and a top supplier of AI-GPU memory to Nvidia, filed to list 177.9 million ADSs on Nasdaq under ticker SKHY, seeking up to $29.4 billion in one of the largest offerings on record.

AI$75.2B data-center revenue, +3.2% YTD stock

AI· Jul 6, 2026

Nvidia Becomes the Black Sheep of 2026's Chip Rally

Nvidia Becomes the Black Sheep of 2026's Chip Rally

Despite record data-center revenue up 92% year over year, Nvidia's stock is up just 3.2% in 2026 while AMD has gained 171% and Micron 304%, as Broadcom's custom AI chips reshape the competitive order.

AIOpen-weight model: July 2026 access

AI· Jul 4, 2026

Mistral Is Building Its Own Anti-OpenAI Playbook

Mistral Is Building Its Own Anti-OpenAI Playbook

Mistral AI is preparing an open-weight model with July early access and its own Nvidia-powered compute platform, positioning the French lab as Europe's clearest sovereign alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Jul 4, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 2, 2026

Thiel Capital's Jack Selby Nabs Stakes in Hot Startups Like Etched Through Arizona Connections

FUNDING$300M Fund II (raising)

Thiel Capital's Jack Selby Nabs Stakes in Hot Startups Like Etched Through Arizona Connections

Jack Selby, a former PayPal executive and longtime managing director at Peter Thiel's family office, has been using his Phoenix-based venture firm Copper Sky Capital — and his seat on the Arizona Commerce Authority board — to secure allocations into hot AI startups like Etched, TechCrunch reported July 2. Copper Sky invested in Etched's $120 million Series A roughly two years ago partly by pledging to help the Nvidia competitor eventually move chip fabrication to Arizona's TSMC GIGAFAB, and is now raising a $300 million second fund built around the same regional-manufacturing thesis.

Jul 2, 2026

BIG TECH· Jul 2, 2026

Anthropic in Early Talks With Samsung on Custom 2nm AI Chip

BIG TECHEarly-stage, no design contract yet

Anthropic in Early Talks With Samsung on Custom 2nm AI Chip

Anthropic is in preliminary discussions with Samsung to manufacture a custom AI accelerator on Samsung's 2nm process, joining a wave of frontier labs building their own silicon to cut Nvidia dependence.

Jul 2, 2026

FUNDING· Jul 1, 2026

Together AI Raises $800M at $8.3B Valuation as Open-Source Inference Demand Triples

FUNDING$800M

Together AI Raises $800M at $8.3B Valuation as Open-Source Inference Demand Triples

Together AI closed an $800 million Series C on July 1 at an $8.3 billion post-money valuation, more than doubling its prior mark. The round was led by Aramco Ventures with Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, Emergence Capital, Nvidia, March Capital and others participating, as annual bookings crossed $1.15 billion on the back of open-source model usage tripling industry-wide in twelve months.

Jul 1, 2026

IPO· Jul 1, 2026

QumulusAI Files S-1/A for Nasdaq Direct Listing as GPU-Cloud Provider to Underserved AI Customers

IPODirect listing filed

QumulusAI Files S-1/A for Nasdaq Direct Listing as GPU-Cloud Provider to Underserved AI Customers

QumulusAI filed a seventh S-1/A amendment on July 1 ahead of a planned Nasdaq direct listing, detailing an Atlanta-based GPU-as-a-service business built from the 2022 merger of a blockchain-hosting company and a data-center asset firm, later rebranded after acquiring The Cloud Minders in 2025. The company reported $3.4 million in quarterly revenue against a $5.5 million operating loss, is scaling toward 120 megawatts and up to 90,000 Nvidia B200/B300 GPUs, and disclosed going-concern risk in its filing.

Jul 1, 2026

FUNDING· Jun 30, 2026

Nvidia Competitor Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Sales

FUNDING$5B valuation

Nvidia Competitor Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Sales

Etched, the Harvard-dropout-founded chip startup building Sohu, a transformer-only inference chip, disclosed on June 30 that it has booked over $1 billion in orders and closed an unannounced $500 million round in December at a $5 billion post-money valuation. The company bundles Sohu chips with custom racks and software into 'frontier inference clusters' aimed at cheaper, faster, more power-efficient inference than Nvidia GPUs.

BIG TECH· Jun 30, 2026

Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders

BIG TECH$5B valuation

Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders

Etched, the Harvard-dropout-founded AI chip startup building the transformer-specific Sohu chip, disclosed on June 30 that it has booked more than $1 billion in customer contracts for its 'frontier inference clusters' and sits at a $5 billion valuation following a $500 million round in December. The company says an 8-chip Sohu server can outperform 160 Nvidia H100 GPUs on Llama 70B inference while using less power and space -- a direct challenge to Nvidia's inference dominance from a company that nearly ran out of cash three years ago.

BIG TECH· Jun 30, 2026

Qualcomm's $3.9B Modular Buy Hands GV a 27x Return as Chipmakers Race to Own AI Software

BIG TECH$3.9B

Qualcomm's $3.9B Modular Buy Hands GV a 27x Return as Chipmakers Race to Own AI Software

Qualcomm's roughly $3.9 billion acquisition of Modular -- the AI-software company founded by Swift and LLVM creator Chris Lattner -- has handed early backer GV a 27x return on its initial check, the firm's Dave Munichiello revealed this week. The deal is the clearest sign yet that the strategic battleground in AI is shifting from raw silicon to the software layer that makes chips usable, as Qualcomm bets it can challenge Nvidia's CUDA moat by owning the stack that runs models across CPUs, GPUs and AI accelerators.

AI· Jun 30, 2026

Meituan Open-Sources LongCat-2.0, a 1.6T Agentic Coding Model Trained Entirely on Chinese Chips

AI1.6T parameters

Meituan Open-Sources LongCat-2.0, a 1.6T Agentic Coding Model Trained Entirely on Chinese Chips

Meituan open-sourced LongCat-2.0, a 1.6-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts coding model with a one-million-token context window, releasing it under the permissive MIT license on GitHub and Hugging Face. The release unmasked 'Owl Alpha,' the anonymous stealth model that had quietly topped global developer charts on OpenRouter for two months -- and revealed that the entire system was trained and served on a 50,000-card domestic compute cluster with no Nvidia or AMD accelerators. It is the clearest evidence yet that China can build a near-frontier AI stack end to end despite US export controls.

AIFirst custom inference chip

AI· Jun 27, 2026

Onsemi to Acquire Synaptics for $7B All-Stock Deal, Expanding Edge AI and Robotics Silicon

AI$7B

Onsemi to Acquire Synaptics for $7B All-Stock Deal, Expanding Edge AI and Robotics Silicon

Onsemi agreed to acquire Synaptics in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $7 billion, announced late June, giving it a broader footprint in edge AI, human-interface chips, IoT and automotive silicon. The deal is one of the largest semiconductor M&A transactions of 2026 and repositions Onsemi against Nvidia's edge ambitions.

Jun 27, 2026

AI· Jun 26, 2026

Cerebras Runs OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol at 750 Tokens per Second, Setting a New Frontier-Model Speed Record

AI750 tok/sec

Cerebras Runs OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol at 750 Tokens per Second, Setting a New Frontier-Model Speed Record

Cerebras Systems will deploy OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol on its wafer-scale WSE-3 chips at up to 750 tokens per second in July — roughly 10x faster than any Nvidia GPU deployment of a frontier model in production. The partnership is a strategic proof point for Cerebras ahead of its planned 2026 IPO.

Jun 26, 2026

FUNDING· Jun 26, 2026

Stealthy AI-R&D Lab Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed From a16z and Kleiner Perkins

FUNDING$200M

Stealthy AI-R&D Lab Mirendil Raises a $200M Seed From a16z and Kleiner Perkins

Mirendil, a new and largely stealth frontier AI lab focused on building systems for AI research and development itself, raised a $200 million seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, with Nvidia among its backers. A nine-figure seed for a pre-product lab is one of the year's clearest signals that capital is racing to fund the next generation of foundation-model challengers.

Jun 26, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 26, 2026

OpenAI, SpaceX and the Scramble to Build Custom AI Chips -- and Escape Nvidia

BIG TECHCustom silicon

OpenAI, SpaceX and the Scramble to Build Custom AI Chips -- and Escape Nvidia

From OpenAI to SpaceX, the most compute-hungry companies in tech are now designing their own silicon, intensifying pressure on Nvidia's dominance of AI hardware. OpenAI recently unveiled its first custom chip built with Broadcom, and the broader move toward in-house accelerators reflects a strategic push to cut costs, secure supply, and avoid paying Nvidia's margins on every training run and inference call.

Jun 26, 2026

AI· Jun 24, 2026

OpenAI Unveils 'Jalapeño,' Its First Custom AI Chip, Built With Broadcom for Inference at Scale

OpenAI Unveils 'Jalapeño,' Its First Custom AI Chip, Built With Broadcom for Inference at Scale

OpenAI revealed Jalapeño, its first in-house silicon -- a chip designed with Broadcom and purpose-built for running AI models (inference) rather than training them. OpenAI says early results show 'significantly better performance-per-watt' than current state-of-the-art alternatives, marking its most concrete step yet to reduce a near-total dependence on Nvidia GPUs.

Jun 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 24, 2026

Qualcomm Agrees to Buy Modular for ~$4B in All-Stock Deal, Taking Aim at Nvidia's CUDA Moat

BIG TECH$3.92B

Qualcomm Agrees to Buy Modular for ~$4B in All-Stock Deal, Taking Aim at Nvidia's CUDA Moat

Qualcomm agreed on June 24 to acquire Modular, the AI-infrastructure company founded by Chris Lattner (LLVM, Swift), in an all-stock deal valued near $4 billion — its largest ever. The play: use Modular's MAX platform to run AI models across Qualcomm silicon without hand-tuning code for each chip, directly attacking the software stack that has cemented Nvidia's data-center dominance.

Jun 24, 2026

BIG TECH· Jun 24, 2026

Qualcomm to Buy AI-Software Startup Modular for ~$3.9B to Attack Nvidia's CUDA Moat

BIG TECH~$3.9B

Qualcomm to Buy AI-Software Startup Modular for ~$3.9B to Attack Nvidia's CUDA Moat

Qualcomm agreed to acquire Modular -- the startup behind the Mojo programming language and MAX AI platform -- in an all-stock deal worth roughly $3.9 billion. The bet is that the way to break Nvidia's dominance isn't a faster chip but an open software layer that lets AI models run efficiently across any hardware, directly challenging the CUDA lock-in.

Jun 24, 2026

FUNDING· Jun 22, 2026

Groq Confirms $650M Raise and Rebuilds Leadership After Nvidia's $20B 'Not-Acqui-Hire'

FUNDING$650M

Groq Confirms $650M Raise and Rebuilds Leadership After Nvidia's $20B 'Not-Acqui-Hire'

AI chipmaker Groq confirmed a $650 million funding round and a near-total leadership rebuild, six months after Nvidia signed a roughly $20 billion non-exclusive licensing deal that also hired away Groq's founder-CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra and other senior staff. The round -- led by Dallas firm Disruptive and hedge fund Infinitum -- bankrolls Groq's pivot from selling chips to running an AI inference 'neocloud.'

Jun 22, 2026

AI· Jun 22, 2026

Nvidia Says Its Rubin Data Center Design Runs Hotter to Use Far Less Water

Nvidia says its next-generation Rubin data center design runs at higher temperatures and relies on liquid cooling to dramatically cut water consumption, according to The Verge. The move addresses mounting scrutiny of AI's environmental footprint -- though critics note lower water use doesn't fully solve AI's resource problem.

Jun 22, 2026

AI· Jun 22, 2026

SpaceX Signs a $6.3B Compute Deal to Rent GPUs to Open-Source Lab Reflection AI

AI$6.3B

SpaceX Signs a $6.3B Compute Deal to Rent GPUs to Open-Source Lab Reflection AI

SpaceX has agreed to supply Reflection AI -- an open-weight AI lab founded by ex-Google DeepMind researchers -- with Nvidia GB300 capacity at its Colossus 2 data center near Memphis, for $150 million a month from July 2026 through 2029, a $6.3 billion contract. The deal sits alongside SpaceX's even larger compute agreements with Anthropic ($1.25B/month) and Google ($920M/month), cementing the rocket company as a major AI-infrastructure landlord.

Jun 22, 2026

AI· Jun 20, 2026

Huawei-Led Team Post-Trains DeepSeek's 1.6-Trillion-Parameter Model on Ascend Chips, Not Nvidia

A research group including Huawei completed full-parameter post-training of DeepSeek's 1.6-trillion-parameter V4-Pro model using a cluster of at least 1,000 Huawei Ascend 910C chips -- demonstrating that a frontier-scale Chinese model can be trained end-to-end on domestic silicon. It's a milestone in China's drive to break free of US chips and the CUDA ecosystem.

Jun 20, 2026

AI· Jun 18, 2026

Anthropic Locks 3.5-Gigawatt Google TPU Deal as It Passes OpenAI on Revenue

Anthropic committed to roughly 3.5 gigawatts of Google TPU capacity through 2031 via Broadcom -- one of the largest disclosed AI compute contracts ever -- as the company's revenue run rate hit a reported $30 billion annualized, up from $14 billion in February, overtaking OpenAI. The pairing of an enormous non-Nvidia compute deal with surging revenue marks a power shift in the model race.

Jun 18, 2026

Odyssey Raises $310M Series B at $1.45B to Build AI World Models

FUNDING$310M

Odyssey Raises $310M Series B at $1.45B to Build AI World Models

Odyssey, founded by self-driving veterans Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, raised a $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation to build AI world models that simulate real-world physics and causality. Natural Capital led, with Amazon, AMD Ventures and GV joining -- and a strategic AWS Trainium compute deal pointed pointedly away from Nvidia.

SandboxAQ Wins $500M CHIPS Award -- and Hands the US Government an Equity Stake

FUNDING$500M

SandboxAQ Wins $500M CHIPS Award -- and Hands the US Government an Equity Stake

The Department of Commerce signed a definitive $500M CHIPS Act R&D award with Nvidia-backed SandboxAQ to use AI-driven materials discovery for PFAS-free process chemicals, advanced catalysts, rare-earth-free magnets, and battery systems. In a notable twist, Commerce takes a minority, non-controlling equity stake in the company in return.

Odyssey Raises $310M at $1.45B -- Amazon and AMD Bet on World Models for Physical AI

FUNDING$310M

Odyssey Raises $310M at $1.45B -- Amazon and AMD Bet on World Models for Physical AI

Odyssey, the Los Angeles startup founded by self-driving veterans Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, raised a $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation to build 'world models' -- AI systems that simulate physical environments with real-world physics for robotics, autonomy, and interactive media. The round was led by Natural Capital, with Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, Jeff Dean, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Guillermo Rauch, and Kyle Vogt participating, and notably routes the company onto AWS Trainium after it had earlier taken Nvidia's money.

Hydra Host Raises $100M Series A -- Founders Fund and Nvidia Back Bare-Metal GPU Infra

FUNDING$100M

Hydra Host Raises $100M Series A -- Founders Fund and Nvidia Back Bare-Metal GPU Infra

Hydra Host raised a $100M Series A led by Kindred Ventures, with ARK, Founders Fund, and Nvidia participating, to scale its bare-metal GPU platform. The round is a bet that the AI buildout still needs new ways to provision and access compute, not just more chips.