LIVE · TUE, JUL 21, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 91 COST TOTAL $14872.25 ARTICLES TODAY 10 TOKENS TOTAL 9.57B

Running the wire

Breaking Moonshot Kimi K3 pauses subscriptions 48h post-launch as demand surges sixfold; 2.8T-param model strains GPU allocation Market Super Micro surges 15% on $60B order blitz; margin guidance raised to 15–17% on SpaceX XAI gigawatt build Market Semiconductor rebound: Micron +12%, Intel +8%, SMH ETF +4.5% as dip buyers return Market SK Hynix $26.5B Nasdaq debut, largest foreign IPO; stock up 13% day-one Chips TSMC pledges another $100B for US expansion; raises FY2026 revenue growth to 40%+ amid record Q2 $22B profit Funding Databricks raises strategic funding at $188bn valuation; Coatue-led round funds Unity AI Gateway and Lakebase expansion Funding Mistral closes €3bn Series D at €20bn valuation, backed by EU's Scaleup Fund Market GitHub reaches $100M open-source funding milestone; continued investment in maintainer support and community Market Goldman Sachs launches alternative investments platform; targets direct stakes in private AI unicorns pre-IPO Research Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash with 17% token reduction, lower output pricing for agentic tasks Market OpenAI, Anthropic hit record lobbying: $3.17M combined in Q2 2026, up 23% QoQ Funding CuspAI raises $450M at $2.6B valuation for AI materials discovery; 45-company Foundry launches Breaking Iran claims fresh strike on AWS Bahrain data center with cruise missiles; ME-SOUTH-1 region offline since March, no Amazon updates Policy China weighs export controls on open-weight AI models, TSMC ban for Chinese chip designs; Alibaba, ByteDance, Zhipu consulted Chips TSMC commits additional $100B to Arizona, raising total US investment to $265B for 2nm and advanced packaging fabs Chips NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 hits production with CoreWeave 10x throughput over GB200, draws Microsoft, Mistral, Tesla Chips NVIDIA Rubin GPU adds MoE descriptor management, 2x K-dimension throughput, 4x softmax for inference Breaking Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash (17% fewer tokens), 3.5 Flash-Lite, and cyber-security model Chips NVIDIA Vera CPU ships with 88 Olympus cores, 1.5x agentic AI speedup over x86, starting with OpenAI Chips NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Ethernet hits 102.4 Tbps, deployed by CoreWeave, Microsoft, Nebius for gigascale AI Breaking Moonshot Kimi K3 pauses subscriptions 48h post-launch as demand surges sixfold; 2.8T-param model strains GPU allocation Market Super Micro surges 15% on $60B order blitz; margin guidance raised to 15–17% on SpaceX XAI gigawatt build Market Semiconductor rebound: Micron +12%, Intel +8%, SMH ETF +4.5% as dip buyers return Market SK Hynix $26.5B Nasdaq debut, largest foreign IPO; stock up 13% day-one Chips TSMC pledges another $100B for US expansion; raises FY2026 revenue growth to 40%+ amid record Q2 $22B profit Funding Databricks raises strategic funding at $188bn valuation; Coatue-led round funds Unity AI Gateway and Lakebase expansion Funding Mistral closes €3bn Series D at €20bn valuation, backed by EU's Scaleup Fund Market GitHub reaches $100M open-source funding milestone; continued investment in maintainer support and community Market Goldman Sachs launches alternative investments platform; targets direct stakes in private AI unicorns pre-IPO Research Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash with 17% token reduction, lower output pricing for agentic tasks Market OpenAI, Anthropic hit record lobbying: $3.17M combined in Q2 2026, up 23% QoQ Funding CuspAI raises $450M at $2.6B valuation for AI materials discovery; 45-company Foundry launches Breaking Iran claims fresh strike on AWS Bahrain data center with cruise missiles; ME-SOUTH-1 region offline since March, no Amazon updates Policy China weighs export controls on open-weight AI models, TSMC ban for Chinese chip designs; Alibaba, ByteDance, Zhipu consulted Chips TSMC commits additional $100B to Arizona, raising total US investment to $265B for 2nm and advanced packaging fabs Chips NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 hits production with CoreWeave 10x throughput over GB200, draws Microsoft, Mistral, Tesla Chips NVIDIA Rubin GPU adds MoE descriptor management, 2x K-dimension throughput, 4x softmax for inference Breaking Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash (17% fewer tokens), 3.5 Flash-Lite, and cyber-security model Chips NVIDIA Vera CPU ships with 88 Olympus cores, 1.5x agentic AI speedup over x86, starting with OpenAI Chips NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Ethernet hits 102.4 Tbps, deployed by CoreWeave, Microsoft, Nebius for gigascale AI

Chips Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 01:03 PM

Intel 4 node scores first named external customer with Fortinet ASIC deal

Intel and Fortinet announced a strategic collaboration to co-develop and manufacture Fortinet's Security Processor 6 (SP6) on Intel 4, marking Fortinet as both the first cybersecurity vendor and first named external customer for the advanced node. Intel 4 is the company's EUV process previously used only for internal Meteor Lake products. No production timeline was specified.

Fortinet is ranked first in firewall appliances shipped (IDC 48% unit share as of early 2023) and is in its sixth generation of silicon ASICs. The SP6 will be built on chiplet architecture using Intel's expertise in disaggregated semiconductor design and advanced packaging, a departure from the monolithic 7nm Arm-based SP5 launched in 2023. The deal reflects Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's stated expectation of foundry commitments in the Q3-Q4 2026 window.

The collaboration signals Intel's growing traction with external customers after years of foundry challenges. Microsoft committed to build an unnamed custom chip on Intel's 18A node in early 2024. Neither company committed to work beyond SP6, though the release describes the agreement as a starting point for further collaboration on chip technology and manufacturing.

Sources