Qualcomm AI chips, Nscale's $3.36bn, Anthropic's Akamai deal, and more - Silicon Brief #89
September 28, 2026 -
Silicon Brief
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Supermicro has begun shipping liquid cooled NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks, while Huawei introduced its UnifiedBus architecture for large AI clusters and presented data center power, cooling and energy storage systems. Network capacity is also a focus, with Echola Systems introducing equipment for 800G and 1.6T AI network testing, and ITRI showcasing a 3.2Tbps silicon photonics optical engine.
This edition also covers data center construction and operations, including Buildots' agreement supporting more than 100 MW of Green Mountain projects, Vertiv's planned acquisition of King Environmental Services, and a $1.25 billion AI data center lease secured by Host Digital. In chip development, Synopsys and TSMC expanded their AI chip design collaboration, while Nexstrom raised $12 million for its wafer scale 2D semiconductor platform.
Supermicro has begun shipping liquid cooled NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks, while Huawei introduced its UnifiedBus architecture for large AI clusters and presented data center power, cooling and energy storage systems. Network capacity is also a focus, with Echola Systems introducing equipment for 800G and 1.6T AI network testing, and ITRI showcasing a 3.2Tbps silicon photonics optical engine.
This edition also covers data center construction and operations, including Buildots' agreement supporting more than 100 MW of Green Mountain projects, Vertiv's planned acquisition of King Environmental Services, and a $1.25 billion AI data center lease secured by Host Digital. In chip development, Synopsys and TSMC expanded their AI chip design collaboration, while Nexstrom raised $12 million for its wafer scale 2D semiconductor platform.
Brightray signs framework for planned 40MW AI data center in Macao
Brightray subsidiary Brightray Veridian signed a nonbinding agreement to supply prefabricated modules for a planned 40MW AI data center in Coloane, Macao. A final contract depends on securing a tenant, a binding lease, design completion and regulatory approvals, with delivery expected in the third quarter of 2027. Read more
Anthropic expands Akamai cloud commitment to $11.6 billion
Anthropic expands its cloud agreement with Akamai to $11.6 billion over seven years, subject to service and delivery conditions. Akamai plans about $5.5 billion in capacity investment, while the agreement could grow to roughly $20 billion if Anthropic increases spending. Read more
Ezurio launches Bluetooth LE modules with edge AI
Ezurio introduces the BL54LM20 series of Bluetooth LE modules built on Nordic Semiconductor system on chips. The BL54LM20B includes an integrated NPU for offline, real time AI inference, with beta samples planned for October 2026. Read more
USD.AI secures $128.9 million GPU financing facility
USD.AI provides a $128.9 million asset backed loan to finance 32 NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 systems in British Columbia, Canada. The facility supports an undisclosed public GPU cloud provider and is secured by the infrastructure and a contract with an investment grade counterparty. Read more
MetaOptics launches OTCQX ADR programme with J.P. Morgan
MetaOptics establishes a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt programme on the US OTCQX market, with J.P. Morgan serving as depositary bank. The programme does not issue new shares or raise capital, and its ordinary shares remain listed on the SGX Catalist board. Read more
Flexible Circuit Technologies introduces leak detection for AI cooling systems
Flexible Circuit Technologies introduces a customizable flexible sensing assembly designed to detect leaks in liquid cooled AI servers and high performance computing systems. The company will support OEMs, cooling system manufacturers and data center infrastructure providers from design through production. Read more
Schneider Electric says AI building optimisation could cut energy use by 22%
Schneider Electric reports that AI enabled building optimisation could reduce energy use by up to 22% in modeled scenarios. Its analysis estimates the AI layer accounts for savings of 7.2% to 12.7%. Read more
Aeonsemi unveils Praxium multi gigabit Ethernet PHYs
Aeonsemi unveils its Praxium family of multi gigabit Ethernet PHYs, supporting data rates of up to 10 Gbps for robotics, autonomous vehicles and intelligent machines. Samples are available to lead customers, with volume production planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. Read more
Buildots signs Green Mountain deal for 100 MW of data centers
Buildots will provide construction intelligence for two Green Mountain data center projects in Frankfurt and Stavanger, with capacity exceeding 100 MW. The agreement covers work from superstructure through fitout, with expansion planned. Read more
Echola Systems unveils 800G and 1.6T AI network test switches
Echola Systems introduces OPX4D-SM and OPX8D-SM Dual LC OptiShare switches for testing optical connections in AI data center GPU clusters. The switches support 800G and 1.6T links, with configurations that share test equipment across up to 32 devices and support remote automation. Read more
Valens Semiconductor and onsemi develop 3MP automotive sensor
Valens Semiconductor and onsemi will develop a cost optimized integrated 3 megapixel sensor for high volume automotive cameras using the MIPI A-PHY standard. The companies plan to reduce camera component counts and simplify vehicle camera design. Read more
Huawei unveils UnifiedBus for large AI clusters
Huawei introduced its UnifiedBus interconnect architecture at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026, targeting higher bandwidth and lower latency for large scale AI clusters. The company also presented related hardware, an agentic AI SuperCluster, and appliances for running large models locally. Read more
GMIF 2026 reveals speakers for AI memory and storage forum
GMIF 2026 will take place in Shenzhen, China, on September 23, featuring speakers from Samsung Semiconductor, Sandisk, Solidigm and other organisations. The forum will cover AI memory and storage technology, market trends, deployment, collaboration and investment. Read more
Clivet debuts magnetic levitation cooling for AI data centers
Clivet introduced a dual rotor magnetic levitation compressor and other cooling systems for AI data centers at AI Infra Summit 2026. The company also demonstrated a combined power and cooling solution with CLOU. Read more
The Cloud Awards names 2026 AI Awards finalists
The Cloud Awards names finalists for its 2026 AI Awards, recognizing cloud based AI solutions across industries and business functions. Category winners will be announced on October 13, 2026. Read more
MarketsandMarkets projects modular data center market to reach $93.6 billion by 2031
MarketsandMarkets projects the global modular data center market will grow from $41.0 billion in 2026 to $93.6 billion by 2031. The forecast cites demand for scalable infrastructure, cloud services and AI applications, with Asia Pacific expected to grow fastest. Read more
AEWIN to showcase AMD EPYC 9006 AI servers with liquid cooling
AEWIN will showcase its BG18 and BG58 AI servers at Taiwan Expo USA in Dallas from September 24 to 26, 2026. The systems combine AMD EPYC 9006 CPUs, PCIe Gen6 accelerators and two phase direct liquid cooling for AI inference, training and high performance computing. Read more
GSME and Teradyne partner on Silicon Valley semiconductor test center
GSME and Teradyne will open a semiconductor test and evaluation center in San Jose, California, in the fourth quarter of 2026. The facility will support AI, silicon photonics, automotive, power management and RF device development and production preparation. Read more
Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips for on device AI
Qualcomm introduces its Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 smartphone chips, with support for local AI models, camera tools, gaming and voice processing. Motorola plans to use the Extreme chip in its Signature 27 smartphone later this year. Read more
Tencent Cloud launches DataBuddy data and AI workbench
Tencent Cloud launches DataBuddy, a managed data and AI workbench with agents for data engineering, governance, analytics and data science. It is available in China, Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia, with expansion planned for Europe, North America and South America. Read more
StarCharge receives two microgrid technology certifications
StarCharge received an AI collaboration certification from the China Quality Certification Centre and a microgrid performance certificate from Intertek. The certifications assess cloud, edge and device coordination, including device identification, software updates, fault response, redundancy switching and energy efficiency. Read more
FICER to showcase optical solutions at Futurecom 2026
FICER Technology will present 400G and 800G optical transceivers, along with OTN DWDM, DCO, BiDi, XGSPON, and 25G PON modules at Futurecom 2026 in São Paulo. The products target AI workloads, data centers, backbone networks, internet service providers, and industrial applications. Read more
NewMed Energy partners with GeoIntelX on AI gas exploration
NewMed Energy and US based GeoIntelX will use the GIX geospatial AI platform for two natural gas projects. The platform organizes technical, environmental, regulatory and commercial data for AI assisted search and analysis. Read more
Supermicro begins shipping NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks
Supermicro began shipping liquid cooled NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks on September 23, 2026. Each rack includes 72 Rubin GPUs, 36 Vera CPUs, HBM4 memory and LPDDR5X memory. Read more
Leopard Imaging and Lumotive introduce Sirius Max 3D perception platform
Leopard Imaging and Lumotive introduce Sirius Max, a solid state 3D perception platform for robotics, industrial automation and autonomous machines. It combines LiDAR, RGB imaging, depth sensing and GMSL2 connectivity, with sensing beyond 20 meters and 1MP depth resolution. Read more
Cognex launches In-Sight 1750 wafer and panel identification system
Cognex launches the In-Sight 1750 Series for reading difficult markings on semiconductor wafers and panels. The system combines AI, imaging, dedicated lighting and web based read logging to support traceability and production throughput. Read more
FlashGrid adds Oracle AI Database 26ai support across major clouds
FlashGrid version 26.05 supports deployments of Oracle AI Database 26ai on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. The release includes support for Oracle RAC, multi Availability Zone configurations, automated deployment and shared storage. Read more
Everpure named a Leader in Gartner's 2026 Infrastructure Services Magic Quadrant
Everpure is named a Leader in Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for Infrastructure Platform Consumption Services for a second consecutive year. Gartner ranked the company highest for Ability to Execute and furthest for Completeness of Vision. Read more
XPRIZE awards $4.55 million in wildfire competition
XPRIZE awards $4.55 million to teams in its space based wildfire detection and autonomous response competition. Anduril Industries won the response track and received a further $1 million bonus from Lockheed Martin, ahead of a 12 to 15 month deployment phase. Read more
Huawei unveils six AI power sector showcases
Huawei presented six AI and digital power projects at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 and its Global Electric Power Summit in Shanghai. The showcases cover grid operations, microgrids, converter stations and power communications in Brazil and China. Read more
Synopsys and TSMC expand AI chip design collaboration
Synopsys and TSMC expand their work on AI and high performance computing chip design, covering TSMC A14 design flows, agentic AI workflows and advanced packaging. The collaboration also adds validated interface IP and reports tape out milestones for standards including PCIe 7.0, HBM4, UCIe and Ethernet. Read more
Shanghai Chengwei Semiconductor Equipment launches laboratory gas supply system
Shanghai Chengwei Semiconductor Equipment launches a central gas supply system for semiconductor research facilities, university laboratories and precision testing centers. The system supports gas purity of up to 99.9999 percent, with automated cylinder changeover, monitoring, leak detection, nitrogen purging and emergency shutoff controls. Read more
Vertiv to acquire King Environmental Services for EMEA data center support
Vertiv agrees to acquire Ireland based King Environmental Services, a provider of fluid management, commissioning and load testing for liquid cooled data centers. The deal expands Vertiv's thermal management services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Read more
Canaan to showcase Bitcoin mining heat recovery at BTCHEL
Canaan will demonstrate Bitcoin mining systems that recover heat for district networks and homes at BTCHEL in Helsinki on September 25 to 26, 2026. The company will feature hydro cooled and home mining products, citing an 8 MW Nordic installation that supplies heat to about 2,800 homes. Read more
Energy Disruptors UNITE 2026 to bring 3,000 leaders to Calgary
Energy Disruptors will hold UNITE 2026 in Calgary on September 28 to 29, bringing together nearly 3,000 leaders. Discussions will cover AI driven electricity demand, energy infrastructure, geopolitics, critical minerals, supply chains and Canada's competitiveness. Read more
Synteq Digital Opens Chicago AI and Cloud Facility
Synteq Digital opens a Tier III facility in Chicago, its largest single site expansion, offering GPU compute, virtual machines, bare metal servers, storage and network services. The site connects to 350 E. Cermak via a redundant dark fiber ring and supports customers nationwide. Read more
Leviton invests $100 million in network capacity through 2030
Leviton will invest $100 million in its global Network Solutions business from 2026 to 2030. The funding will expand copper and fiber manufacturing capacity for AI infrastructure, data centers, enterprise networks and smart buildings. Read more
C&D Technologies wins Stratus Award for AI data center infrastructure
C&D Technologies receives a Stratus Award from the Business Intelligence Group in the AI Data Center Infrastructure category. The award recognizes its energy storage products for supporting high density computing and power resilience. Read more
Sivers Semiconductors changes wireless and photonics leadership
Sivers Semiconductors appoints Marc Pegulu to lead its Wireless business and David Clark as VP of Engineering for Photonics. Harish Krishnaswamy becomes Chief Strategy Officer, while Photonics CTO Andrew McKee will retire at the end of 2026. Read more
PrismML brings 1 bit Bonsai LLM to Qualcomm smart glasses
PrismML developed a 2 billion parameter version of its 1 bit Bonsai language model for smart glasses powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 Platform. Qualcomm demonstrated the model at its Snapdragon Summit, though no compatible glasses have been announced. Read more
DoIT showcases ITRI's 3.2Tbps silicon photonics engine
Taiwan's Department of Industrial Technology showcased ITRI's 3.2Tbps silicon photonics optical engine at Taiwan Innotech Expo 2026. The light based data transmission technology doubles the capacity of the previous generation while reducing signal loss and heat compared with copper connections. Read more
TransPak opens semiconductor packaging facility in Thailand
TransPak opens a 2,318 square meter facility in Chonburi, Thailand, serving semiconductor, data center and data server customers. The site provides packaging, final assembly and logistics services across Thailand and Southeast Asia. Read more
LG Energy Solution BESS qualifies for NVIDIA DSX Ready program
LG Energy Solution says its North American battery energy storage system qualifies for NVIDIA's DSX Ready BESS program. The system is designed to support power reliability and smooth AI data center loads with modular storage blocks and grid forming capabilities. Read more
Overlord Labs raises $4.35 million Seed extension
Overlord Labs, a San Jose fabless semiconductor company, raises a $4.35 million Seed extension led by Band of Angels, bringing its total funding to $10 million. The company will use the capital to validate its GENESIS Battery Intelligence IC and prepare for production in the first half of 2027. Read more
Ault & Company invests $55 million in Hyperscale Data
Ault & Company invests $55 million in Hyperscale Data through convertible preferred stock, giving it and its affiliates about 62% beneficial ownership. The company may invest up to an additional $96 million, while Hyperscale Data operates an AI data center in Michigan. Read more
Crusoe ends $1.25 billion deal for 29 Boom turbines
Crusoe ends its planned purchase of 29 Boom Supersonic Superpower turbines, previously intended to supply AI data centers including a site in Abilene, Texas. The 42 megawatt units were due to begin delivery in 2027, but are no longer part of Crusoe's near term power plans. Read more
Nscale raises $3.36 billion in pre-IPO convertible financing
Nscale raises $3.36 billion in convertible loan note financing led by Third Point, with backing from NVIDIA, Apollo-managed funds and Citadel. The company will expand its AI cloud infrastructure, including power plants, liquid-cooled data centers and GPU clusters. Read more
EnterpriseDB Calls for Agentic AI Infrastructure Governance at UN Summit
EnterpriseDB called for energy efficiency, sustainability and responsible data layer governance for agentic AI systems at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit. The company cited survey findings on energy considerations in AI decisions and outlined governance and carbon measurement initiatives. Read more
TrinaTracker launches AI robots for solar panel installation and cleaning
TrinaTracker, a Trina Solar subsidiary, introduces two robots for photovoltaic module installation and cleaning. The systems use AI vision, LiDAR and autonomous route planning to support solar plant construction and maintenance. Read more
Skanska to build $84 million, 48 MW data center in Georgia
Skanska will build a 22,700 square meter data center in Georgia under an $84 million contract. The facility will include five colocation halls and 48 MW of capacity, with completion planned for the third quarter of 2028. Read more
ACL Digital receives 2026 TSMC OIP Partner of the Year Award
ACL Digital, part of the ALTEN Group, received TSMC's 2026 Open Innovation Platform Partner of the Year Award for Design Service Excellence. The recognition covers its semiconductor design services for data center, AI, IoT and edge computing customers. Read more
Aon launches gas power insurance program for data centres
Aon launches the Power Lifecycle Program, offering up to $2.5 billion in coverage for gas power projects during construction and early operations. The program supports grid connected and dedicated data centre power projects outside the US, amid growing electricity demand from cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Read more
MeetKai expands sovereign AI deployments to six countries with NVIDIA
MeetKai plans to deploy its sovereign AI platform and locally trained models in Brazil, Ukraine, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh using NVIDIA infrastructure. The rollout includes work with VEON and Kyivstar, plus a Ukrainian AI data center planned to begin initial operations in 2027. Read more
CloudZero launches AI Signals for real time AI cost tracking
CloudZero launches AI Signals, a platform for tracking AI spending and usage across models and providers. It attributes costs across teams and business activities, with dashboards, anomaly alerts and inference monitoring, while keeping customer usage data in the customer’s VPC. Read more
Q.ANT launches open source SDK for photonic computing
Q.ANT releases an open source SDK for programming its photonic Native Processing Units, including C and Python APIs, sample applications, documentation and a CPU based simulator. Developers can test software without specialized hardware, with future access planned through IONOS cloud services and on premises Native Processing Servers. Read more
M31 and Ambiq develop low power IP for TSMC N12e SoCs
M31 and Ambiq are developing Foundation IP for TSMC's N12e process, combining an SPSRAM memory compiler with a low leakage standard cell library. The companies target AIoT, wearable and always on edge devices, with M31 reporting about 50% lower leakage power for the library. Read more
Oracle sends force majeure notice for New Mexico Stargate data center
Oracle sent Blue Owl Capital a force majeure notice covering Project Jupiter, its Stargate data center campus in New Mexico. The notice could permit delayed payments if the site misses its 2028 opening, although Oracle says the project remains on schedule amid pipeline and permitting delays. Read more
Host Digital secures $1.25 billion AI data centre lease
Host Digital holds a 15 year take or pay lease for a 55 MW AI data centre site, with about $1.25 billion in contracted base term revenue. The first site is expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2027, while the company says it has not yet recognized data centre revenue and will need additional financing. Read more
STL expands Neuralis portfolio with pre-terminated fiber assemblies
STL expands its Neuralis data center portfolio with factory tested, pre-terminated fiber trunk assemblies supporting 48 to 6,912 fibers. The products are intended for hyperscale and enterprise facilities supporting AI, cloud and high performance computing workloads. Read more
IFS research finds utilities prioritise grid resilience and affordability
A survey commissioned by IFS of 850 utility executives finds that grid resilience, reliability, affordability and operational performance are leading investment priorities. Most respondents consider AI important for reducing costs, while data silos and aging infrastructure remain barriers to modernisation. Read more
Huawei details grid interactive AI data centre solution
Huawei presented further details of its grid interactive AI data centre solution at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 in Shanghai. The company described power, liquid cooling, hybrid energy storage, grid-forming systems, AI-assisted cooling maintenance and modular construction. Read more
Nexstrom raises $12 million for 12 inch 2D semiconductor platform
Nexstrom raised $12 million in a seed round led by Xora Innovation, with participation from Foothill Ventures and SEEDS. The Singapore based company will use the funding to commercialize its wafer scale 2D semiconductor platform for AI, data center and high performance computing applications. Read more
YCO Cloud and Aolani plan Philippine NVIDIA GB300 cluster
YCO Cloud and Singapore based Aolani, working with NVIDIA and Science Park of the Philippines, plan to deploy a NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 cluster in the Philippines in early 2027. The renewable powered facility will initially include more than 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs for public agencies, businesses, startups and international AI companies. Read more
Huawei Digital Power presents grid forming and AI energy solutions at IDEE 2026
Huawei Digital Power presented renewable energy technologies at IDEE 2026, including grid forming storage, smart microgrids and ultrafast charging. The portfolio also covered energy systems for commercial sites, utilities and AI data centers. Read more
DFI to showcase gaming platforms with up to 180 TOPS at G2E 2026
DFI will demonstrate edge AI gaming platforms at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas from September 29 to October 1, 2026. The display includes the SF101-PTH, which provides up to 180 TOPS for computer vision, fraud prevention and multi screen 4K 3D rendering. Read more
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