Nvidia's China-Specific AI Chips, Microsoft Warns of AI Capacity Strains, and TC Energy's $900M Pipeline Expansion - Silicon Brief #16

Hi there, In this edition of Silicon Brief, we're diving into the latest developments in AI chips and data centers. VSORA has secured $46 million for its AI chip, Jotunn8, marking a significant investment in the future of AI hardware. Meanwhile, Innodisk has launched its 128TB PCIe Gen5 SSDs, designed to meet the growing data storage needs of AI applications. On the data center front, Jet.AI and Consensus Core are planning a new AI data center in Canada, highlighting the increasing demand for AI-capable infrastructure. Additionally, Microsoft is expanding its European data centers by 40% to accommodate the surge in AI demand, while also hosting Elon Musk's Grok AI on its Azure platform. These developments underscore the rapid advancements and investments being made in AI technology and infrastructure, as companies strive to keep pace with the growing needs of AI-driven applications.

TC Energy has approved a $900 million expansion of the Northwoods pipeline in the US Midwest to supply natural gas to power plants for the data center market. ArcusAI has launched an AI-powered platform to improve the grid interconnection process for renewable energy and data center projects in the US. The NEED2D project, led by Queen Mary University of London, focuses on developing 2D semiconductors to reduce electricity consumption in AI data centres. Schneider Electric has released a report advocating for collaboration between data centers and grid stakeholders to manage AI industry energy demands in the U.S.

Broadcom has introduced innovations in optical interconnects with the Sian2M and Sian3 optical DSP products, aiming to improve performance and reduce power consumption in AI and data center networks. Nokia is enhancing data center infrastructure to support AI workloads with high-capacity switching hardware and an open network operating system, SR Linux, aiming for efficient AI processing and automation. xMEMS Labs, Inc. has announced the expansion of its µCooling fan-on-a-chip technology to AI data centers, offering the first in-module active cooling for high-performance optical transceivers.

Nvidia is altering its AI chip designs to comply with US export regulations, enabling sales to Chinese firms like Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent. This follows US-imposed limits on exports of Nvidia's H20 AI chips to China. During an earnings call, Meta CFO Susan Li attributed rising AI infrastructure costs to tariffs from the Trump era, projecting expenditures could reach $72 billion by 2025.

Jet.AI and Consensus Core have signed a Letter of Intent to develop two AI data center campuses in Canada, aiming to deliver 1.5 gigawatts of power capacity to meet the growing demand for AI compute. Microsoft executives have warned of potential AI service disruptions due to demand surpassing their data center expansion capabilities. Khazna Data Centers plans to establish a new AI-capable data center in Ankara, Türkiye, with a capacity of up to 100MW, aligning with Türkiye's increasing focus on AI development.

VSORA has secured $46 million to develop its Jotunn8 AI chip for high-performance applications. Innodisk launched PCIe Gen5 SSDs with 128TB capacity for AI workloads. Quobyte introduced Quobyte 4 with ARM and cloud support for scalable AI training.