AI
OpenAI launches new voice intelligence features in its API
OpenAI added new Realtime API capabilities for voice conversations, live transcription, and translation, including a new GPT‑Realtime‑2 model.
Topic
Chips & Semiconductors
Coverage of the broader chip industry, foundries, memory, and emerging architectures.
55 stories · Updated 2026-05-07
More on Chips & Semiconductors
Chips
AI boom pushes Samsung to a $1T valuation
TechCrunch says Samsung shares jumped on surging AI-driven demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM), lifting the company past the $1 trillion mark.
Startups
Nebius agrees to buy Eigen AI in about $643M deal to speed up and cut costs of AI inference
Cloud provider Nebius is acquiring 20-person startup Eigen AI, which optimizes chip performance for running (not training) AI models.
Startups
Nvidia invests in Swedish legal AI startup Legora at $5.6B valuation
Nvidia’s NVentures joined a Series D extension for Legora, which sells agent-style tools for legal workflows and says it has surpassed $100M in ARR.
Chips
Intel stock more than doubles in April as AI-era CPU demand and turnaround hopes build
CNBC says Intel shares rose 114% in April — the best month in the chipmaker’s Nasdaq history — as investors rallied behind a turnaround story and growing AI-driven demand for CPUs and data-center capacity.
Chips
Google unveils new TPUs positioned for the ‘agentic era’
The company says the new TPU designs target faster frontier-model training and improved efficiency across the AI lifecycle.
Policy
Google signs a classified deal allowing Pentagon use of its AI models for ‘any lawful’ purpose
A report says the agreement expands DoD access to Google’s models, amid employee concerns about military AI uses.
Analysis
WSJ: Big Tech's AI spending wave is accelerating job cuts
A WSJ column argues companies are reallocating budgets from headcount to chips and data centers, with layoffs spreading beyond a few giants.
Chips
Tesla says it plans to build AI chips on Intel’s not-yet-finished 14A process
Musk framed the Terafab effort as a supply-security move as demand for AI silicon tightens.
Startups
DeepMind's David Silver just raised $1.1B to build an AI that learns without human data
Former DeepMind reinforcement learning leader David Silver’s new lab says it wants to build a 'superlearner' that acquires skills without human datasets.
Chips
Nvidia shares hit a record, briefly pushing its market cap past $5 trillion
The rally underscores how central Nvidia’s GPUs remain to AI infrastructure spending across Big Tech.
Big Tech
Meta signs deal to use millions of Amazon’s Graviton chips for AI workloads
The agreement highlights a growing shift toward CPUs and custom silicon for running AI agents after models are trained.
Big Tech
Apple Names Hardware Chief John Ternus as Next CEO, Signaling a Device-First AI Strategy
Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran who helped build the Apple Watch, AirPods, and Vision Pro, is expected to push AI-powered devices rather than competing directly with frontier model labs.
Chips
SpaceX Plans to Manufacture Its Own GPUs at New Semiconductor Fab, S-1 Filing Reveals
Excerpts from the company's confidentially filed $1.75 trillion IPO registration list in-house GPU production as a major capital expenditure, alongside the Terafab chip venture Elon Musk is developing with Tesla and xAI using Intel's 14A process node.
Chips
Intel Reports 7% Revenue Gain as AI Demand Fuels Biggest Beat in Years
First-quarter revenue of $13.6 billion topped Wall Street estimates by more than $1 billion, driven by a 22% jump in the Data Center and AI segment, sending shares up more than 20%.
Chips
WSJ: Google introduces a new inference-focused TPU chip as AI chip race shifts beyond training
The Wall Street Journal reports Alphabet unveiled a processor aimed at running AI models (inference), highlighting demand growth as companies deploy generative AI systems.
Chips
Google's Eighth-Generation TPUs Split Training and Inference Into Two Purpose-Built Chips
The TPU 8t delivers 2.8 times the compute of its predecessor for model training, while the TPU 8i offers a 9.8-times improvement per pod for agentic inference — and both will be available from Google Cloud later in 2026.
Big Tech
Google Unveils Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and New TPU Chips at Cloud Next 2026
At its annual Las Vegas conference, Google consolidated its AI products under a unified enterprise agent brand and announced a $750 million fund to help cloud partners sell AI agents to businesses.
Startups
Anthropic Commits $100 Billion to AWS Over Ten Years as Its Revenue Surpasses $30 Billion Run Rate
The sweeping new deal with Amazon, which builds on $8 billion in prior investment, turns Anthropic into one of Amazon's most significant cloud and chip customers alongside its role as a portfolio company.
Big Tech
Amazon Plans to Invest Up to $25 Billion More in Anthropic
The deal includes a $5 billion upfront commitment plus $20 billion tied to milestones, and requires Anthropic to spend $100 billion on AWS over the next decade.
Chips
TSMC Posts 58% Profit Surge in Q1 2026, Raises Full-Year Forecast to Over 30% Revenue Growth
The world's largest contract chipmaker delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of record earnings as AI chip demand outpaces supply, with Nvidia now its largest customer and Q2 revenue guidance of $39–40.2 billion.
Big Tech
Snap Partners With Qualcomm for AI Glasses Push as Layoffs Reshape Company Focus
Snap's AR-focused hardware subsidiary Specs deepened its hardware relationship with Qualcomm as the company simultaneously cut 16 percent of its workforce to fund a more focused bet on AI-enabled consumer devices.
Chips
ASML Shares Slide Despite Raised 2026 Forecast as Investors Weigh China Export Risk
The chip equipment giant lifted its annual revenue outlook to €36–40 billion on strong AI demand, but investors sold shares on concern that new US restrictions could cut Chinese orders, which currently account for about 20 percent of ASML's sales.
Chips
TSMC Reports Record First-Quarter Revenue Ahead of Full Earnings, AI Demand Remains Insatiable
Taiwan's chip giant posted revenue of NT$1.13 trillion for Q1 2026, a 35 percent year-over-year rise, setting the stage for a formal earnings report on April 16 expected to confirm a fourth straight quarterly record.
AI
Anthropic Signs Multibillion-Dollar Cloud Deal With CoreWeave to Power Claude
The agreement gives Anthropic a new tranche of Nvidia-powered data center capacity in the US, as demand for Claude continues to surge past a $30 billion annual run rate.
Chips
Intel secures multiyear Google commitment to use Xeon chips and customize Intel's infrastructure processors in data centers
The partnership gives Intel a crucial validation of its data center chip roadmap at a moment when the company is fighting to stay relevant against Nvidia and custom silicon.
Big Tech
Amazon announces $25 billion total investment in Mississippi data centers, adding 2,000 high-skilled jobs
The cumulative commitment cements Mississippi as one of the largest sites of AI infrastructure investment in the United States, with new campuses and a 616-megawatt renewable energy buildout.
Policy
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google join forces through Frontier Model Forum to combat AI model theft by Chinese rivals
The three competing AI labs are sharing intelligence to detect adversarial distillation — a practice where foreign actors extract proprietary capabilities from frontier models without authorization.
Chips
Foxconn parent Hon Hai posts 30% revenue surge as AI server demand holds strong into 2026
The Nvidia manufacturing partner's quarterly results signal that hyperscaler appetite for AI compute hardware remains robust despite geopolitical headwinds.
AI
Microsoft releases three in-house AI models — MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2 — in its clearest challenge yet to OpenAI
The MAI Superintelligence team's first commercial model releases beat competitors on key benchmarks while undercutting OpenAI and Google on price.
AI
Anthropic acquires stealth biotech AI startup Coefficient Bio in $400 million stock deal
The acquisition accelerates Anthropic's push into life sciences, adding a ten-person team of computational drug discovery veterans to its health division.
Startups
Q1 2026 global startup funding hits $297B — more than all of pre-2019 annual VC activity
Four mega-deals — OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Waymo — accounted for 63% of a quarter that smashed every previous record by a factor of 2.5 over the prior quarter.
Chips
Nvidia invests $2B in Marvell to expand AI chip ecosystem with custom silicon and photonics
The investment integrates Marvell's custom chip design and silicon photonics technology into Nvidia's AI infrastructure ecosystem, giving hyperscalers more options beyond standard GPU configurations.
Chips
SK Hynix files confidentially for $10–14B US IPO that could ease AI memory shortage
The South Korean memory giant's planned US listing aims to fund HBM capacity expansion and could help relieve the supply crunch stalling AI hardware builds worldwide.
Policy
White House Releases National AI Policy Framework, Seeks to Preempt State Laws
The Trump administration's six-part legislative blueprint calls on Congress to block state-level AI regulations, limit AI developer liability, and establish uniform federal standards to prevent a regulatory patchwork.
Policy
White House AI Plan Calls for Blocking State AI Laws, Streamlining Data Center Permitting
The Trump administration's framework urges Congress to preempt state AI regulations in California, Colorado, and New York and standardize the permitting process for the data centers that power AI systems.
Policy
Trump's Four-Page AI Framework Pushes Federal Control but Faces Uphill Battle in Congress
Axios analysis finds the White House AI proposal offers Congress a set of broad priorities rather than a legislative agenda, and may struggle to gain traction even among Republicans.
Analysis
GTC 2026 in Review: Nvidia Pivots From GPUs to Full-Stack Inference Architecture
The conference confirmed that Nvidia's competitive edge is shifting from selling individual chips to delivering integrated rack-scale systems built for the age of autonomous AI agents.
Chips
Nvidia Launches Space Computing Initiative, Targets Orbital AI Data Centers
Jensen Huang declared that space computing "has arrived" as Nvidia announced chip platforms for orbital deployments in partnership with Axiom Space, Starcloud, and Planet.
Chips
Nvidia Unveils Vera Rubin Platform and Groq LPU at GTC 2026, Eyes $1 Trillion in Orders
Jensen Huang's keynote at the SAP Center in San Jose introduced a seven-chip computing platform and an entirely new class of AI inference processor derived from Nvidia's $20 billion Groq acquisition.
AI
Nvidia Launches NemoClaw to Make OpenClaw Agent Platform Enterprise-Ready
The open-source stack adds policy enforcement, privacy routing, and network guardrails to OpenClaw, which Huang called the most popular open-source project in history and said every company will need a strategy for.
AI
Nvidia Adds BYD, Hyundai, Nissan, and Geely to Autonomous Vehicle Platform
Four new automaker partnerships announced at GTC 2026 bring Nvidia's Drive Hyperion autonomous vehicle development platform to some of the world's largest car manufacturers.
Analysis
TechCrunch Midpoint Report: The AI Stories Shaping 2026's First Quarter
From Anthropic's Pentagon battle to the data center construction boom and hardware price inflation, a roundup of the defining AI narratives through mid-March finds the industry at a pivotal inflection.
Analysis
At Morgan Stanley's TMT Conference, Sam Altman and Jensen Huang Warned AI Will 'Shock' Investors
Executives from leading AI labs told attendees that a non-linear capability leap is coming by mid-2026, while a Morgan Stanley survey found AI already caused a 4% average net workforce reduction globally.
Chips
Meta Unveils Four Generations of Custom MTIA AI Chips in Bid to Reduce Reliance on Nvidia
The social media giant's accelerated silicon roadmap targets both ranking and generative AI inference, with all four chip generations deploying within two years at a pace far faster than industry norms.
Analysis
Morgan Stanley Names Amazon, Nvidia, and Western Digital as Top Conviction Picks After TMT Conference
Following a week of AI-dominated presentations from hundreds of company executives, the bank's analysts said nearly every business is now defining itself as either an AI enabler or AI adopter.
Startups
Yann LeCun's AMI Labs Raises $1.03 Billion to Build AI That Understands the Physical World
The Turing Award winner's new startup, backed by Nvidia, Samsung, and Bezos Expeditions, is betting that world models will surpass large language models for real-world applications.
Big Tech
Apple Launches $599 MacBook Neo, Its Most Affordable Laptop Ever, Powered by iPhone Chip
The MacBook Neo uses Apple's A18 Pro mobile processor — a first for any Mac — targeting Chromebook and Windows users with a breakthrough entry price.
Big Tech
MWC 2026 Opens in Barcelona with AI-Native Hardware and Robot Phone Concepts
Mobile World Congress kicked off with device makers showcasing on-device AI chips, foldables, and a functional robot phone with an autonomous tracking camera.
Big Tech
Apple Announces M5 MacBook Air and Updated MacBook Pro with Performance Jumps
The new MacBook Air doubles base storage to 512GB and gains Wi-Fi 7, while the MacBook Pro gains M5 Pro and M5 Max chips with larger base storage.
Analysis
Inside the Trillion-Dollar Race to Build AI Infrastructure: $700 Billion in 2026 Spending, Stargate Construction Underway
A comprehensive analysis of AI infrastructure commitments finds hyperscalers planning nearly $700 billion in 2026 data center spending, with Stargate construction underway in Texas and Oracle locking in $300 billion in compute contracts.
Startups
OpenAI Raises $110 Billion From Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank at a $730 Billion Valuation
OpenAI's record-shattering funding round, led by a $50 billion Amazon commitment, is the largest private financing in history and cements deep infrastructure partnerships running on Amazon's cloud and Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips.
Chips
Nvidia Posts $43 Billion Quarterly Profit on Record $68 Billion Revenue as AI Chip Dominance Deepens
Nvidia's fiscal fourth quarter delivered its most profitable period ever, surpassing the quarterly earnings of Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet, with data center revenue surging 75% year-over-year to $62.3 billion.
AI
Google and Samsung Debut Agentic Gemini Features on Galaxy S26 That Apple Still Cannot Match With Siri
At Samsung's Galaxy S26 Unpacked event, Google demonstrated Gemini's ability to autonomously complete multi-step tasks — like analyzing group chats and ordering food through apps — a capability Apple promised for Siri in 2024 but has yet to ship.
Chips
Meta Strikes Multibillion-Dollar Chip Deal With AMD, Takes Up to 10% Equity Stake Option
AMD and Meta announced a sweeping chips-for-stock agreement under which Meta will acquire AI chips equivalent to six gigawatts of capacity and gain the option to purchase up to a 10% stake in AMD.
