Today's Hardware Pulse
Nvidia and SK Hynix ink multi-year AI memory chip pact
Nvidia and SK Hynix have signed a multi‑year agreement to co‑develop next‑generation memory chips optimized for artificial‑intelligence workloads. The collaboration will focus on memory for Nvidia’s Vera Rubin accelerator and broader AI infrastructure, pairing Nvidia’s AI expertise with SK Hynix’s high‑performance memory capabilities.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Rapidus raises $943M in funding
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan: ‘This Is A Fundamentally Different Company Today’
Intel reported first‑quarter revenue of $13.6 billion, up 7 percent YoY, driven by a 22 percent surge in its data‑center business amid AI demand. CEO Lip‑Bu Tan credited organizational cuts, a refreshed leadership team, and a stronger balance sheet for the earnings beat that lifted the stock more than 19 percent after hours. The company highlighted progress on its Intel 4, Intel 3 and advanced 14A nodes, while still seeking large foundry customers. Tan warned that despite the gains, significant work remains to sustain growth.
Fox ESS Ranks No. 1 Globally in Residential Energy Storage
Fox ESS was ranked No. 1 worldwide for residential energy‑storage shipments in 2025, according to S&P Global’s Market Tracker. The company’s global market share jumped 50 % year‑over‑year, putting it ahead in Germany and the UK. Headcount doubled to over 5,000 employees, with...
Intel’s Q1 Dip Overblown; Real Turnaround Underway
Intel’s Q1 sell-off was way overblown. They posted $600M in FCF, TSMC just partnered on 18A, and the foundry is ramping. Q2 might be messy, but the turnaround is real. You don’t sell that for pennies. Semiconductors
TSMC Releases New Roadmap, Rolls Out A13 Process
At its North America Technology Symposium, TSMC unveiled a roadmap extending to 2029, highlighting new process nodes such as N2, A12 and the flagship A13. The A13 node is a 6% area‑shrunk version of A14, marking the most advanced technology...
Satellite Smartphone Messaging Is Changing Search and Rescue. But Can You Trust Your Life to It?
Smartphone manufacturers now embed satellite SOS messaging, letting hikers send emergency texts without cellular coverage. Apple iPhone 14 and newer tap Globalstar, while Google Pixel 9/10 use Skylo, and carriers such as Verizon and T‑Mobile support select Android models. Colorado...
Samsung Brings Ikea Smart Home Support to Its Platform, With One Important Caveat
Samsung announced that its SmartThings platform will now natively support Ikea’s line of Matter‑compatible smart‑home devices, eliminating the need for Ikea’s $110 Dirigera hub. Around 25 Ikea products—including plugs, sensors, and bulbs—can be managed through any compatible SmartThings hub. However,...
Mobileye’s Q1 Shows EyeQ, SuperVision Surge
Mobileye’s Q1 2026 call is out—EyeQ shipments and SuperVision growth are the big stories this quarter. Industry shifts are real, but Mobileye’s staying in the fast lane. 🚗💨 SelfDriving
Carbon Nanotube Wiring Gets Closer to Competing with Copper
Researchers in Spain have doped bulk double‑walled carbon‑nanotube fibers with tetrachloroaluminate, boosting their electrical conductivity up to ten times the undoped baseline and reaching about 70% of aluminum’s conductivity, roughly half of copper’s. The doped fibers retain their lightweight nature,...
Intel’s Data Center Revenue Grows 22 Percent Amid Pent-Up AI Demand
Intel reported a 22% year‑over‑year jump in data‑center revenue, reaching $5.1 billion in Q1 2026, which helped lift total quarterly revenue to $13.6 billion—well above analysts' $12.4 billion forecast. The strong performance sparked a more than 14% surge in the stock during after‑hours...
CPU Demand Surges; Intel Sees Strong Data Center Growth
Agentic workloads are increasing demand for CPUs, $INTC CEO said data center CPU demand remains strong and foundry improvements are running well ahead of schedule. Im so bullish $AMD
Why the Real Quantum Race Is Shifting From Hardware to Software
The quantum computing narrative is moving from a hardware‑centric race to a software‑driven era, highlighted by IBM's recent investments in quantum software startups. While qubit counts and stability remain important, the industry is now focusing on real‑world applications that unlock...
Why Refurbished Garmin Watches Might Be the Best Option for Runners
Refurbished Garmin watches are emerging as a cost‑effective alternative for serious runners who value proven reliability over the latest bells and whistles. Major retailers like Amazon now sell certified‑refurbished Forerunner, Fenix and Instinct models that have been inspected for GPS...
NVIDIA Blackwell Architecture Solves Complex Quantum Chemistry Structures
NVIDIA’s new Blackwell GPU architecture, paired with a mixed‑precision implementation of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method, has successfully modeled two of the most demanding quantum‑chemical systems—FeMoco, a key fertilizer catalyst, and cytochrome P450, a vital liver enzyme. The breakthrough...
Texas Instruments Shares Surge 9% After Q1 Earnings Beat and Upbeat Guidance
Texas Instruments (TXN) reported first‑quarter revenue of $4.8 billion, a 19% year‑over‑year rise, and earnings per share of $1.68, beating expectations. The chipmaker also lifted its 2026 revenue guidance to $5.0‑$5.4 billion, prompting the stock to climb about 9% in after‑hours trading.
Why Chip Sovereignty Is No Longer About Chips—But Systems
Governments are still spending tens of billions on semiconductor fabs, but AI is reshaping where value is created. Industry leaders say the competitive edge now lies in integrated systems that combine GPUs, CPUs, accelerators, memory, storage and software, not just...
Tesla to Spend $2 B on AI‑Hardware Acquisition and Leverage Intel 14A for Terafab Chips
Tesla disclosed a $2 billion stock‑and‑equity deal to acquire an undisclosed AI‑hardware firm and confirmed it will build its next‑gen Terafab chips on Intel’s 14A node. The moves underscore Musk’s aggressive shift toward in‑house silicon to power autonomous vehicles, robotics and...
Sony WH-1000XM6 Beats Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 in $300 Price‑Performance Clash
Sony's WH-1000XM6 headphones, priced at $450, are pitted against Bowers & Wilkins' premium Px8 S2 at $800 in a ZDNet review that argues the $300 price gap hinges on noise‑cancellation strength versus high‑end build. The analysis also references budget alternatives...
Tesla’s $25 B AI and Robotics Bet Triggers Stock Volatility and Higher CapEx
Tesla disclosed a $25 billion capital‑expenditure plan for AI software, chips and robotics, sending its shares down nearly 3% after an initial rally. The spending surge, driven by the Terafab chip fab and Optimus robot production, raises questions about cash flow...
Non‑Linear Resonance Turns Quartz Sensor Into Single‑Particle Detector
Scientists from Ewha Womans University, Korea University and the Kavli Institute have demonstrated that a commercial quartz crystal microbalance can detect single micro‑ and nanoparticles by driving it into a non‑linear regime, achieving a detection limit of roughly 100 femtograms....
Intel Showcases Wildcat Lake Reference Laptop with Aluminum Chassis and Fanless Design
Intel unveiled a reference laptop built on its new Core Series 3 "Wildcat Lake" silicon, featuring a six‑core 2P+4LPE CPU, integrated Xe graphics, a 17 TOPS NPU and 16 GB soldered RAM in an aluminum chassis. The design offers both a 17 W PL1/22 W...
Track Smarter, Not Harder: Save 25% on Samsung’s High-Performance Smartwatch
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 is now priced at $188.67, a 25% discount off its $249.99 list price. The device packs a 3 nm processor, a 3‑in‑1 BioActive sensor suite, and AI‑driven health insights, positioning it as a premium fitness wearable. Its durability...
I Just Wanted Endpoints
The author highlights a missing orchestration layer—dubbed Layer 2C or the Reasoning Plane—between AI hardware and inference endpoints. On a single NVIDIA DGX Spark, they manually juggle vLLM and Ollama containers, deciding model placement, memory swaps, and runtime selection. At cloud...
Oklo Shares Surge 9% After AI Partnership with NVIDIA and Los Alamos
Oklo Inc. (OKLO) climbed 9.12% to $79.01 on Thursday after unveiling a collaboration with NVIDIA and Los Alamos National Laboratory to fuse nuclear power with AI-driven modeling. The deal aims to create nuclear‑powered AI factories and accelerate fuel validation, positioning...
1965 Zenith N514G: Banged Up, but Still Appealing
A 1965 Zenith N514G clock radio was rescued from a $5 clearance bin and restored to near‑original condition. The author documented the radio’s cosmetic flaws—peeling silver trim, cracked clock bezel, yellowed knobs—and the cramped interior that required custom wire extensions...
3D Bio-Hybrid Device Merges Neurons and Computing
Princeton researchers have built a three‑dimensional bio‑hybrid device that integrates living neurons with a flexible metal‑mesh electrode array. The scaffold lets tens of thousands of brain cells grow through the mesh, enabling chronic recording and stimulation for more than six...
Humble Emerges With $24M Seed Round
San Francisco‑based startup Humble has emerged from stealth with a fully autonomous, electric Class 8 hauler designed for cost‑efficient freight transport. The company announced a $24 million seed round, led by Eclipse and joined by Energy Impact Partners and other investors. Humble’s...
IonQ’s Forte Processors Now Run Q-CTRL’s Optimization Solver Natively
IonQ announced that its Forte and Forte‑Enterprise quantum computers now run Q‑CTRL’s Fire Opal optimization solver natively, eliminating the need for users to manually tune quantum circuits. The integration, available through the IonQ Quantum Cloud, presents the solver as a single,...
Supercar-Inspired Design Meets Satellite Connectivity in NOTE 60 Ultra. Launching in Nigeria This Week
Infinix is debuting the NOTE 60 Ultra in Nigeria, a premium smartphone co‑designed with Italian supercar studio Pininfarina. The device combines a unibody aluminium chassis, a 4nm‑class processor, 7,000 mAh battery and 200 MP Samsung camera with two‑way satellite calling. Its specs target...
Half of US Data Centers Are Being Cancelled. Except They're Not.
A recent ZeroHedge headline claimed half of U.S. data centers slated for 2026 would be cancelled or delayed, but the underlying Sightline Climate outlook only predicts 30‑50% of projects will face typical construction delays. The article conflates delays with cancellations,...
Continental’s Radar Business Is Scaling Fast. Control Is Moving Elsewhere.
Continental is shipping record volumes of automotive radar as the sensor becomes standard across vehicle platforms. The rise of centralized compute means perception, fusion and decision‑making now occur in software, relegating radar to a data‑feed role. This shift squeezes pricing,...
How to Control Brushless Motors (Part 3): Commutation
The article explains how brushless DC (BLDC) motors achieve precise motion through electronic commutation, comparing three main techniques: trapezoidal (six‑step) commutation with Hall sensors, sinusoidal commutation using high‑resolution encoders, and sensorless commutation that extracts rotor angle from back‑EMF. It details...
GPU Renters Are Playing a Silicon Lottery
Researchers from William & Mary, Jefferson Lab, and Silicon Data analyzed 3,500 GPUs across 11 cloud providers and found substantial performance variability even among identical models. The study, using the SiliconMark benchmark, showed up to a 34.5% difference in 16‑bit...
An AI Agent Just Designed a Complete RISC-V CPU From Scratch in 12 Hours
Verkor.io’s agentic AI system, Design Conductor, generated a complete RISC‑V CPU core—named VerCore—in just 12 hours, moving from a 219‑word specification to a GDSII layout ready for fabrication. The five‑stage, in‑order design runs at 1.48 GHz and achieved a CoreMark score...
AI-Driven System Intelligence Unlocks Hidden Data Center Efficiency
For years, the assumption has been simple: better hardware would drive efficiency. Christopher Wellise (@cwellise) no longer believes that. The real gains are coming from systems intelligence and from AI uncovering efficiencies inside infrastructure we already thought was optimized. That 9% efficiency...
Sinclair ZX Spectrum Launched, Sparking UK Home Computing Boom
#ThisDayInTechHistory. April 23, 1982. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer was released in the UK. https://t.co/JbZxpol1M5
Data Centers Drive Record Surge in GE Vernova Power Equipment Orders as Turbine Slots Tighten Through 2030
Data centers generated $2.4 bn of GE Vernova electrification orders in Q1 2026, outpacing the entire 2025 year. Total electrification orders doubled year‑over‑year to $7.1 bn, while gas turbine contracts grew to 100 GW, with 20% linked to data‑center load. The company’s 2030 turbine...
Intel's Server CPU TAM Set to Quadruple by 2030
Definitely glad I never gave up on $INTC. Still execution milestones to watch, but as we anticipate the server CPU TAM to from ~$25b this year to ~$95b in our base case in 2030 it's greenfield dollar expansion. ...
Intel's CPU Surge Powers Sixth Straight Guidance Beat
Ah the mighty agentic CPU surge. Good for $INTC. Solid beat, guidance is great, six consecutive quarters of beating guidance.
YouTuber Has DIMM Idea, Builds Working DRAM in Backyard
AI‑driven demand has driven DRAM prices to record levels, prompting a YouTuber known as Dr. Semiconductor to turn his garden shed into a makeshift cleanroom and fabricate a 5 × 4 array of memory cells. The DIY chips store 12.3 pF per capacitor...
Iridium Unveils Summer PNT ASIC, Expands D2D Services
.@IridiumComm: PNT ASIC is out this summer & we're assessing new sateliltes to improve Iridium PNT accuracy. NTN Direct service launches this yr too. Surprise: @IridiumBoss includes @AST_SpaceMobile w/@SpaceX & @Amazonleo as among 'the big D2D services.'https://t.co/Ew1vCDCfUT https://t.co/RkfaSTjcu8
Northern Beltline Conflict Pressures $14.5bn Project Marvel Data Center Expansion Approval
The Bessemer City Council voted 5‑2 to rezone over 900 acres, clearing the way for Project Marvel’s expansion to roughly 1,600 acres. The $14.5 billion hyperscale data‑center campus will now host 18 buildings after developers shifted the site to avoid the...
Hiring for Precision: Why Thermal Stability Expertise Is the New Must-Have in Semiconductor Talent
A recent incident at an Arizona semiconductor fab saw a $2.3 million yield loss when aluminum handling arms warped 42 μm during thermal cycling, exposing the critical role of thermal stability. The root cause was a mismatch in coefficient of thermal expansion...
Two Paths for AI in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Platform Integration Vs. Point Solutions
AI is becoming a core layer in semiconductor fabs as data volumes explode, prompting two distinct adoption pathways. In North America and Europe, vendors pursue platform‑scale AI that integrates with legacy systems and supports multiple use cases, while Chinese fabs...
Electrical Panel Company SPAN Launches XFRA "Distributed Data Center" Offering
SPAN, known for smart electrical panels, unveiled XFRA—a distributed data center that taps underused power in homes and commercial sites. Each XFRA compute node houses 16 Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPUs and four AMD EPYC GPUs, managed by the XFRA Cloud...
Cool-Running Solutions Meet AI Core, AI Factory, and Industrial Power Challenges
At APEC 2026, Alpha and Omega Semiconductor (AOS) unveiled a suite of power‑management products aimed at AI‑core, AI‑factory and industrial‑power applications. The lineup includes the 16‑phase AOZ73216QI controller for high‑performance GPUs, SiC and GaN MOSFETs for ultra‑low‑loss DC‑DC conversion, and integrated...
A Comb-Shaped, Silicone-Scaffolded Hydrogel Electrode for Stable Overnight EEG Acquisition in Assistive BCI Applications
Researchers unveiled a comb‑shaped, silicone‑scaffolded hydrogel electrode designed for stable overnight EEG acquisition in assistive brain‑computer interface (BCI) applications. The device maintains low scalp impedance for eight continuous hours, works on both hairless and hair‑bearing scalp, and delivers 100% triple‑blink...
Quantum Chips Could Scale Faster with New Spin-Qubit Readout that Reduces Sensors and Wiring
Researchers at Quantum Motion and UCL unveiled a radio‑frequency electron‑cascade readout that amplifies spin‑qubit signals, boosting signal‑to‑noise ratio by over 35 dB. The technique reads two‑electron spin states in roughly 7.6 µs, a hundred‑fold speed gain versus prior dispersive methods. By eliminating...
Royal Navy Tests Drone Tech for North Atlantic Sub Hunting
The Royal Navy wrapped a four‑month technology demonstration under the Atlantic Bastion programme, inviting small and medium‑sized enterprises to field off‑the‑shelf autonomous systems for anti‑submarine warfare. Participants showcased uncrewed surface vessels, acoustic detection arrays, AI‑linked operation centres, sonobuoy‑armed drones, subsea...
SpaceX May Build Its Own GPUs to Reduce Chip Supply Risks
SpaceX disclosed in its S‑1 filing that it may manufacture its own GPUs to mitigate chip supply constraints and rising compute costs. The proposal is listed as a substantial capital expenditure and ties into the Terafab complex, a joint venture...
Valve Make Steps to Improve Steam Deck Verification, Giving Developers More Performance Data
Valve announced an upgrade to its Steam Deck Verification tools, giving developers access to detailed performance metrics. The new offering includes a 30‑day rolling average framerate chart and variance data, letting studios see how stable gameplay is on the handheld....