Modal passes $1B in annualized revenue, valued at $15.75B
AI compute platform Modal says its annualized run rate topped $1 billion as it closed a $750 million Series D at a $15.75 billion post-money valuation, led by Accel.
AI infrastructure News and Analysis
86 verified stories covering AI infrastructure, product updates and industry developments.
Microsoft unveils Maia 300, aims to run inference from 2027
Microsoft says its Azure Maia chips will scale to multi-gigawatt deployments from 2027, with the third-generation Maia 300 becoming its primary inference system.
State of AI report says the frontier is down to three labs
Nathan Benaich's 2026 State of AI Report names Anthropic, OpenAI and Google as the frontier, and flags local opposition to data centers as a new variable.
GitHub rebuilds Git storage as commits jump 5x in a year
AI agents pushed GitHub's write traffic past old limits, so the company is rebuilding Git storage for up to 35x more throughput.
AWS Ends NDAs With Governments Over Data Center Deals
AWS says it will stop signing nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on data center projects, following backlash in South Bend, Indiana.
China's data centers hit 24GW, trailing only North America
SemiAnalysis says China has delivered 24GW of AI data center capacity, second only to North America, as ByteDance leasing deals drive a wholesale boom.
Space String Compute Constellation Planned With Over 1,000 Satellites
Orient Space Chain and DFH Satellite unveil a laser-linked 'Space String' compute constellation, planning 1,000+ satellites with a first launch in Q4 2027.
OpenAI's 14x-Faster API Tier Set to Expand
OpenAI may expand its Ultrafast API tier — up to 14x faster on Cerebras chips — to more developers around DevDay, but pricing is still unannounced.
DeepSeek Details Sandbox System Powering 3 Million Runs a Day
DeepSeek's new paper details DSec, the sandbox system behind its agent training that launches about 3 million sandboxes a day at peak concurrency near 380,000.
Gemini Distillation Service Enters Preview, Locked to One Region
Google Cloud's Gemini distillation service enters preview, but the teacher model, student model, and region are all fixed for now.
Micron pays Taiwan staff NT$1M each, union still wants more
Micron's record FY2026 bonus gives Taiwan employees up to NT$1 million each, but the union wants profit-based quarterly payouts, not one-off cash.
OpenAI Pauses New ChatGPT Pro $200 Sign-Ups
OpenAI paused new sign-ups for the $200 ChatGPT Pro plan as GPT-6 Astra demand outstrips compute, while Go, Plus, Business and the API stay open.
OpenRouter launches US routing, lists Chinese open models
OpenRouter's new US-region endpoint decrypts and processes requests only inside the US, and its list of available models includes Chinese open-weight models DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K3 and GLM 5.2.
TSMC and ASML Push Photomasks From 6 to 12 Inches
TSMC and ASML will shift High NA EUV photomasks from 6 inches to 12 inches, aiming to eliminate stitching, raise throughput, and cut costs by 2033.
MIIT plans 9,800 EFLOPS of AI compute by 2030
China's MIIT sets a 2030 target of 9,800 EFLOPS in intelligent computing power, backed by 3.8 trillion yuan in planned information-infrastructure investment through 2030.
US grid queues hold 700GW in requests, real demand is 70GW
US utilities have logged over 700GW in data center interconnection requests versus roughly 70GW of real usage, and tighter vetting is already cutting forecasts by 40%.
Hanxu Chips Keep AI Weights On-Die, Target 24TB/s Bandwidth
Peking University-linked startup Hanxu Technology unveils uHBM/uLPU chips that keep AI model weights on-die for 24TB/s readout bandwidth, but the approach caps models at around 4B parameters.
South Korea's Free AI for All Rides on 512 B200 GPUs
South Korea picked SK Telecom, KT, and Kakao consortia to run a free, token-unlimited AI service for all citizens using just 512 Nvidia B200 GPUs.
Qualcomm Bets 6G on AI-Native Design, Carriers to Sell Tokens
Qualcomm says 6G's real shift is AI-native integration, not speed, and expects carriers to move from selling data to selling compute and inference tokens.
Amazon Doubles Nvidia GPU Order to 2 Million Chips
Five months after ordering 1 million Nvidia GPUs, AWS has doubled the order to 2 million, even as Amazon's own AI chips hit a $25 billion revenue run rate.
By 2028, Two Labs Could Control 80% of New AI Compute
SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel projects Anthropic and OpenAI will control 80% of new AI compute by 2028, scaling to 54GW each on $5 trillion in debt.
Alibaba Raises HK$80 Billion for AI Infrastructure Push
Alibaba raised HK$80 billion in an hour-long share placement earmarked for AI infrastructure, but shares fell 9% and closed below the offer price.
NVIDIA claims Vera Rubin NVL72 boosts throughput 30x per megawatt
NVIDIA's early tests show Vera Rubin NVL72 hitting 30x GB300 NVL72's per-megawatt throughput on agentic AI workloads, with independent review from SemiAnalysis still pending.
Meta's Homegrown RDMA Protocol Survives 10% Packet Loss
Meta detailed MetaRoCE, an in-house RDMA transport that skips PFC and still works at 10% packet loss; full spec ships at OCP in October.
Trillion-Parameter Model Restart Cut From 8.8 Minutes to 32 Seconds
Ant Group and SGLang keep quantized weights resident in GPU memory, cutting Ling-2.6-1T restart time from 8.8 minutes to about half a minute.
Google Pushes AlloyDB's Vector Index Past 10 Billion Vectors
Google Cloud's updated ScaNN index for AlloyDB now scales past 10 billion vectors at 51ms P95 latency and 95% recall, as AI agents drive retrieval volumes far beyond traditional RAG.
Stripe to Acquire OpenRouter for Over $7 Billion
Stripe is buying AI model router OpenRouter in a deal reported at more than $7 billion, folding model selection into payment settlement just three months after a $1.3 billion valuation.
Nvidia backs OpenAI's 8GW Ohio AI campus
OpenAI, Nvidia and SB Energy have set a 20-year structure for the PORTS-Pike campus. The important constraint is power, financing and construction—not another chip launch.
Tencent AI capex jumps to RMB52.8B
Tencent's second-quarter report shows AI moving from product demos into capex, cash flow and WeChat-scale deployment tests.
Nvidia turns AI factories into finance
Nvidia is working with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR on compute-financing platforms that could mobilize more than $500 billion for AI infrastructure.
Firebird opens an AI factory in Armenia
Firebird has launched a NVIDIA DSX AI factory in Armenia, with a roadmap for 70,000 GPUs, 300MW in the country, and a wider 2GW frontier-market infrastructure plan.
Anthropic Reportedly Locks In Norway Compute
Volta and Bitdeer disclosed a Norway AI factory deal that Bloomberg-linked reports identify as Anthropic's latest compute push.
Nvidia Puts $5B Behind SSI
Nvidia and Safe Superintelligence tied Ilya Sutskever’s closed research lab to Vera Rubin compute, turning a quiet superintelligence bet into an infrastructure story.
Gemini Nears 1 Billion Monthly Users
Alphabet says Gemini has reached 950 million monthly active users while it raises its 2026 capex outlook to $195 billion-$205 billion.
Microsoft bets billions on Europe AI compute
Microsoft is committing billions of dollars to Mistral's European AI infrastructure, turning the French model lab into a compute and sovereign-AI partner.
SenseTime sends AI compute into orbit
SenseTime and ADA Space plan four compute satellites this year, with a 2030 target of a thousand-satellite AI compute constellation.
Approaching.ai raises 1B yuan for a token factory
Approaching.ai raises 1B yuan for a token factory. A concise localization of the verified facts and the industry signal behind the story.
Ollama raises $65 million for local models
Ollama raises $65 million for local models is reframed for global technology readers, with the key numbers, product claims and open questions kept intact.
Nvidia tests revenue sharing for AI cloud GPUs
Nvidia tests revenue sharing for AI cloud GPUs is reframed for global technology readers, preserving the key numbers, claims and open questions.
Microsoft-backed I-2SEA cable links India to Singapore for AI traffic
Subsea bandwidth, GPU clusters and AI data-center corridors.
National Grid backs Joulent’s dedicated power plant for Microsoft AI
AI power demand, grid queues and private gas-fired capacity.
Crusoe discusses a $3B raise at a possible $30B valuation
Neocloud capacity, power access and hyperscale AI contracts.
Omen AI raises $31 million to monitor data center fluids
Omen AI raised a $31 million Series A for inline sensors that track coolant contamination and wear as AI data centers move deeper into liquid cooling.
Raja Koduri raises $35 million to build an Arm for AI chips
Oxmiq Labs wants to license OxCore, a GPU-style IP block that combines GPU, CPU and tensor engine pieces for custom AI silicon.
Together AI lands $800 million as open-model cloud demand surges
Aramco Ventures led the Series C, valuing the Nvidia-backed open-model infrastructure provider at $8.3 billion.
Nvidia Chip Runs on Power From Valar’s Small Reactor
Valar Atomics powered an Nvidia Blackwell chip from its Ward250 reactor in Utah, framing the test as a first for nuclear-fed AI infrastructure.
Meta Shares Jump on AI Compute Rental Plan
Meta is exploring a business that rents out excess AI compute, turning a costly infrastructure buildout into a possible revenue line.
South Korea puts $518B behind four AI chip clusters
South Korea puts $518B behind four AI chip clusters
Baseten raises $1.5B as inference becomes the prize
Baseten’s new Series F values the inference infrastructure company at up to $13 billion, reflecting investor demand for cheaper, faster and more reliable model serving.
FERC pushes 90-day power reviews for AI data centers
The U.S. energy regulator ordered six major grid operators to justify or rewrite large-load interconnection rules as AI data centers strain power queues.
Claude outage hits five models for 90 minutes
Anthropic reported elevated errors across Claude.ai, API, Claude Code and government services, with Opus, Sonnet and Haiku models recovering one by one.
Goldman models a $7.6T AI build-out
Goldman Sachs estimates global AI infrastructure spending from 2026 to 2031 could reach $7.6 trillion, with compute, data centers and power as the major buckets.
OpenAI weighs a giant Ohio data-center lease
The reported 10-gigawatt lease would shift OpenAI from owning more infrastructure to long-term capacity commitments backed by partners such as Nvidia.
Gemini suffers a global outage lasting more than six hours
The interruption showed how dependent users have become on hosted AI assistants and why AI infrastructure now faces cloud-service reliability expectations.
Switch seeks funding above $50 billion valuation
The data-center operator has moved from an $11 billion take-private deal to a potential $50 billion-plus valuation as AI demand turns power and land into scarce assets.
Google Pledges Water-Positive Data Centers by 2030
Google says it will replenish more water than its data centers consume by 2030, pairing public water reporting with projects across 97 watersheds.
SoftBank Plans a €75 Billion AI Data Center Bet in France
SoftBank wants to build 5 GW of AI data center capacity in northern France, tying Masayoshi Son’s infrastructure wager to Europe’s nuclear power advantage.
DriveNets raises $410 million as AMD backs AI networking
DriveNets raised a $410 million Series D at an $8.5 billion valuation, with AMD joining a bet on Ethernet fabrics for large AI deployments.
DriveNets raises $410 million for AI networking
DriveNets is valued at $8.5 billion as AMD backs its Ethernet fabric bet against Nvidia-style closed AI clusters.
Alphabet to raise $80B for AI data centers, Berkshire invests $10B
Alphabet plans to raise $80 billion through stock sales to fund AI infrastructure, with Berkshire Hathaway contributing $10 billion.
OpenRouter processes 100T tokens monthly, raises $113M led by Google
OpenRouter, an AI model routing platform, has raised $113 million in Series B funding led by CapitalG, valuing the company at $1.3 billion.
Broadcom, Meta, and Partners Invest $125M in UCLA Semiconductor Hub
Five companies including Broadcom and Meta jointly invest $125 million over five years to establish a semiconductor R&D center at UCLA, focusing on next-gen AI chips and workforce training.
AI cabinet steel maker SendCutSend raises $110M at $1B valuation
SendCutSend, a metal fabrication startup, raised $110 million led by Paradigm and Sequoia, hitting a $1 billion valuation as AI data center demand drives orders.
Armada raises $230M for modular AI data centers
Armada is selling deployable AI infrastructure for ships, energy sites and remote industrial operations.
Dell Adds 1,000 AI Clients in a Quarter, Orders Hit $64B
Dell reports $64 billion in AI-related orders and $43 billion backlog, adding 1,000 new AI Factory customers in the latest quarter.
European AI data center power prices to rise 12% in 2026
European industrial electricity costs are double those in the US and 50% higher than in China and India, threatening AI data center expansion.
Iceotope raises $26M as AI cooling demand jumps
The UK liquid-cooling company wants to scale immersion systems as next-generation AI racks push far beyond what air cooling can handle.
Fractile raises $220M to rethink inference chips
London startup Fractile raised a $220 million Series B led by Accel, Factorial Funds and Founders Fund to attack the inference bottleneck with a memory-centric chip design.
Cisco lifts AI orders outlook while cutting 4,000 jobs
Cisco raised its full-year AI infrastructure order target to $9 billion while announcing a 5% workforce reduction and restructuring charge.
Google talks with SpaceX about putting TPUs in orbit
Google’s Project Suncatcher is reportedly moving from research toward launch talks with SpaceX as AI data centers run into power and siting constraints on Earth.
Judgment Labs Raises $32M to Debug AI Agents
Lightspeed backed Judgment Labs twice in six months as the startup builds a feedback layer for agent failures.
ByteDance lifts its 2026 AI budget to $30 billion
ByteDance has raised its 2026 AI infrastructure plan by 25%, with memory inflation and a larger domestic-chip allocation reshaping the bill.
NVIDIA Uses a $2.1 Billion Option to Lock In IREN Compute
NVIDIA paired a five-year IREN share option with a $3.4 billion GPU cloud commitment, signaling that AI infrastructure now starts with power, land and data centers.
Nvidia bets $3.2 billion on Corning optical infrastructure
Nvidia is tying itself to Corning as AI data centers move from copper cabling to optical links, funding new U.S. plants and taking warrant-based upside.
DeepInfra Raises $107M as Nvidia Backs Inference Cloud
DeepInfra's Series B signals that independent inference infrastructure for open models and agent workloads is becoming its own layer.
Panthalassa raises $140M for AI data centers at sea
Peter Thiel led a $140 million round for Panthalassa, which wants wave-powered offshore nodes to run AI workloads from 2027.
OpenAI Says Its 2026 Compute Bill Will Hit $50 Billion
Greg Brockman told a court OpenAI expects to spend $50 billion on compute this year, exposing the scale and circular financing behind its AGI push.
Mira Murati's new company hits $12 billion valuation in 14 months
Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has secured a multibillion-dollar deal with Google Cloud for GB300 systems and reached a $12 billion valuation just 14 months after launch.
ChatGPT Down for 3 Hours, Cause Still Unknown
A major global outage on April 20 took ChatGPT offline for roughly three hours, affecting Codex, the API, and Projects. OpenAI provided minimal information and no root cause analysis, raising concerns about AI infrastructure reliability for businesses.
Fluidstack valuation jumps from $7.5B to $18B in four months as AI data center demand surges
AI infrastructure startup Fluidstack, which builds custom data centers for Anthropic, Meta, and others, has more than doubled its valuation to $18 billion within four months, driven by surging demand for specialized AI compute.
AWS Launches Four Nova 2 Models at Once
Amazon unveiled the Nova 2 family of four models, alongside Nova Forge for custom enterprise training and Nova Act for browser automation, bundling AI models, training, and automation into a single ecosystem.
Japan's Labor Shortage Makes Robots the Main Stage for Physical AI
Japan is deploying physical AI at scale, driven by a severe labor shortage rather than a love of technology. The country faces a shrinking workforce, with robots now working in warehouses, construction sites, farms, and convenience stores.
Anthropic's annualized revenue triples to $30B, signs largest compute deal
Anthropic's annualized revenue surpassed $30 billion in March 2026, and the company signed a massive compute contract with Google and Broadcom for 3.5GW of TPU capacity starting in 2027.
Eli Lilly and NVIDIA Launch $1 Billion AI Co-Innovation Lab and LillyPod Supercomputer
Eli Lilly has launched LillyPod, an in-house AI supercomputing cluster built with 1,016 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, and announced a joint $1 billion AI co-innovation lab with NVIDIA in San Francisco.
AI data centers to consume more electricity than all of Japan by end of 2026
Global data center electricity consumption is projected to exceed 1,000 TWh by the end of 2026, driven almost entirely by AI workloads, raising concerns about grid strain, rising residential bills, and the limits of energy supply.
Nvidia Blackwell Sold Out Through Mid-2026
Nvidia's B200 and GB200 NVL72 racks are sold out until mid-2026, with cloud giants holding over 3.6 million units in backlog. The article examines supply chain bottlenecks, the upcoming Blackwell Ultra (GB300), and what this means for AI companies.