silicon design
30 articles about silicon design in AI news
Amazon Designs Custom AI Silicon for Future Devices, Panay Says
Amazon hardware chief Panos Panay confirmed Amazon is designing its own end-to-end silicon for some devices, signaling a strategic push into custom AI hardware.
GUC, Wiwynn Partner on Silicon-to-System AI Infrastructure for Hyperscalers
GUC and Wiwynn partner on silicon-to-system AI infrastructure, integrating SoC design, optical I/O, and liquid cooling for hyperscalers.
Upscale AI Raises $500M for AI-Native Networking Silicon
Upscale AI raised $500M for AI networking silicon, with Google Cloud as a strategic partner. The deal targets GPU cluster interconnect bottlenecks.
Nvidia, Unitree, Sharpa unveil H2+ humanoid robot reference design
Nvidia, Unitree, and Sharpa released H2+, a humanoid robot reference design, at Computex 2026 to standardize physical AI development workflows.
Qualcomm Ships Hyperscaler Custom Silicon by December 2026
Qualcomm is developing custom silicon for an unnamed hyperscaler, with shipments expected December 2026, marking its most concrete data-center comeback move.
Qualcomm Builds Dedicated CPU for Agentic AI, Enters Hyperscale Silicon Market
Qualcomm CEO revealed dedicated CPU for agentic AI, custom silicon deal with hyperscaler shipping Dec 2026, and agentic smartphones. Pivot challenges GPU-centric AI infrastructure consensus.
DeepSeek-V4 Ported to MLX for Apple Silicon Inference
A developer has ported DeepSeek-V4 to Apple's MLX framework, allowing the large language model to run on Apple Silicon Macs. Early results show functional inference with room for optimization.
Nvidia's Silicon Photonics Roadmap Targets AI Data Center Bottlenecks
Nvidia is developing its own silicon photonics-based interconnects to address the growing data transfer bottleneck within AI data centers and supercomputers. This move is critical as AI model size and cluster scale continue to grow exponentially.
MLX-Benchmark Suite Launches as First Comprehensive LLM Eval for Apple Silicon
The MLX-Benchmark Suite has been released as the first comprehensive evaluation framework for Large Language Models running on Apple's MLX framework. It provides standardized metrics for models optimized for Apple Silicon hardware.
MLX-LM v0.9.0 Adds Better Batching, Supports Gemma 4 on Apple Silicon
Apple's MLX-LM framework released version 0.9.0 with enhanced server batching and support for Google's Gemma 4 model, improving local LLM inference efficiency on Apple Silicon. This update addresses a key performance bottleneck for developers running models locally on Mac hardware.
Gemma 4 Ported to MLX-Swift, Runs Locally on Apple Silicon
Google's Gemma 4 language model has been ported to the MLX-Swift framework by a community developer, making it available for local inference on Apple Silicon Macs and iOS devices through the LocallyAI app.
Qwen3-TTS Added to mlx-tune, Enabling Full Qwen Model Fine-Tuning on Apple Silicon Macs
The mlx-tune library now supports Qwen3-TTS, making the entire Qwen model stack—including the new text-to-speech model—fine-tunable on Apple Silicon Macs. This expands local AI development options for researchers and developers.
Silicon Photonics Breakthrough Enters Mass Production, Paving Way for Next-Generation AI Infrastructure
STMicroelectronics has begun mass production of its PIC100 silicon photonics platform, enabling 800G and 1.6T data rates critical for AI data centers. This breakthrough technology replaces copper with light for faster, more efficient data transmission between AI accelerators.
Silicon Valley AI Startup Targets Japan's Industrial Robotics Crown
Former Google AI researchers have launched Integral AI in Tokyo, aiming to transform Japan's massive industrial robotics sector with AI models that teach robots through observation and language prompts. The startup is already in talks with Toyota, Sony, and other manufacturing giants.
The Silicon Shift: How AI Offloading is Redefining Professional Competence
A paradigm shift is underway where professional competence increasingly depends on effectively leveraging AI tools rather than raw cognitive ability. This transformation is collapsing traditional seniority hierarchies and commoditizing intelligence across industries.
Apple's M5 Pro and Max: Fusion Architecture Redefines AI Computing on Silicon
Apple unveils M5 Pro and M5 Max chips with groundbreaking Fusion Architecture, merging two 3nm dies into a single SoC. The chips deliver up to 30% faster CPU performance and over 4x peak GPU compute for AI workloads compared to previous generations.
Apple Reportedly Developing 'Balta' AI ASIC for Cloud Compute
A Morgan Stanley report indicates Apple is accelerating development of a custom ASIC, codenamed 'Balta,' for AI cloud and hybrid compute. This marks Apple's first known move to design silicon for its data centers, not just consumer devices.
Chinese Team Claims Carbon Nanotube CFET Breakthrough; Challenges TSMC at 2nm
Chinese team claims 3x carbon nanotube CFET gain over silicon at 2nm, bypassing EUV. No peer review; skepticism warranted.
MLX CUDA Backend Passes All Tests, Closing Apple GPU Gap
MLX CUDA backend passes all tests, enabling NVIDIA GPU support. Milestone bridges Apple Silicon and CUDA ecosystems for ML workloads.
ODMs Evolve from Manufacturers to AI Infrastructure Partners
ODMs shift from manufacturing to design/integration partners for AI racks, driven by GPU/ASIC complexity and liquid cooling.
Nvidia Invests $2B in Marvell to Deepen NVLink Fusion Tie-Up
Nvidia invested $2B in Marvell to deepen NVLink Fusion partnership, integrating Marvell custom silicon into AI interconnect fabric.
Intel's UCIe-S Hits 48 Gb/s on 22nm, Beats 3nm EMIB
Intel demonstrated a UCIe-S die-to-die interconnect on 22nm hitting 48 Gb/s/lane over standard organic substrate, beating a 3nm EMIB design with 3× higher data rate and 2.8× higher bandwidth density. This signals a strategic shift away from EMIB for Intel's own products toward UCIe over substrate.
Google Splits TPU Line: 8t for Training, 8i for Inference
At Cloud Next 2026, Google introduced two new AI chips — TPU 8t for training and TPU 8i for inference — splitting its custom silicon for the first time. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta are buying multi-gigawatt TPU capacity, signaling a crack in NVIDIA's 81% market share.
Developer Achieves 395x RTFx on M5 Max with Fastest Parakeet v3 for Apple ANE
Developer @mweinbach has optimized the Parakeet v3 speech recognition model for Apple's Neural Engine, achieving a 395x real-time factor on an M5 Max chip. This represents a significant performance leap for on-device AI inference on Apple Silicon.
Google, Marvell in Talks to Co-Develop New AI Chips, Including TPU-Optimized MPU
Google is reportedly in talks with Marvell Technology to co-develop two new AI chips: a memory processing unit (MPU) to pair with TPUs and a new, optimized TPU. This move is a direct effort to bolster Google's custom silicon stack and compete with Nvidia's dominance.
Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct 4-bit DWQ Model Released for Apple MLX
A developer has ported a 4-bit quantized Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct model to Apple's MLX framework. This makes the capable 7B model more efficient to run on Apple Silicon Macs.
Meta Expands Broadcom Partnership for Next-Gen AI Infrastructure
Meta is expanding its partnership with semiconductor giant Broadcom to co-develop its next-generation AI infrastructure. This move signals a continued, long-term commitment to custom silicon for AI training and inference.
Mac Studio AI Hardware Shortage Signals Shift to Cloud Rentals
Developers report a global shortage of high-memory Apple Silicon Macs, with 128GB Mac Studios unavailable worldwide. This pushes practitioners toward renting cloud H100 GPUs at ~$3/hr, marking a shift from the recent local AI trend.
Qualcomm X2 Elite Matches Apple M5 in Efficiency Test
In a mixed-use laptop test simulating office work, Qualcomm's Snapdragon X2 Elite system-on-chip matched the power efficiency of Apple's latest M5 chip. This marks a significant milestone for Windows on Arm in its competition with Apple Silicon.
Intel Joins SpaceX, xAI, Tesla in 'Terafab' Chip Project
Intel announced it is joining the 'Terafab' project alongside SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla. The collaboration aims to refactor silicon fab technology, likely to support the massive compute demands of AI and aerospace.