The chipmaker, whose largest investor is the U.S. government, reported that the A.I. boom’s domino effect had hurt sales to personal computer makers.

© Loren Elliott for The New York Times

Samsung Electronics reported the most profitable quarter in its history on Thursday, with operating profit of 107.4 trillion won on revenue of 195.3 trillion won, and still watched its shares close more than 4% lower.  At one point they were down 6.6%. The KOSPI, which had broken above 6,000 the day before, slipped back under […]

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A Chinese businesswoman who had a close relationship with Jensen Huang was found to be passing intelligence to Beijing. President Trump was briefed and took no action.

© Manuel Orbegozo for The New York Times

• Google's AI chip business is turning into a TPU-shaped headache for Nvidia.
• A blockbuster deal with Oracle will put Google's TPUs inside another hyperscaler.
• Is the market underestimating the potential of Google's chip business?

Earlier this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang downplayed the threat of other companies building competing AI chips, including Google.

"Without Anthropic, why would there be any TPU growth at all?" he said in an interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, referring to Google's custom chips. "It's 100% Anthropic."

That is no longer the case.

On Tuesday, Google and Oracle announced a blockbuster deal that will see Google's TPUs, short for Tensor Processing Units, made available to Oracle cloud customers from next year. As the companies underscored in a joint announcement, it's the first time Google's TPUs have been offered on a hyperscaler's platform beyond its own.

Anthropic isn't the only one Nvidia should be worried about. OpenAI has a job listing for a software engineer to optimize its models for TPUs, and The Information reported Tuesday that OpenAI plans to buy TPUs from Google.

Meanwhile, several analysts have predicted Google's TPU business is about to explode as more companies hedge their bets with a multichip strategy — providing an opening for Google and others to further move onto Nvidia's turf.

Despite this, Nvidia's chip business still eclipses everyone else's, including Google, which is also a big customer of Nvidia's GPUs. Yet Google's AI chips, which the company began building more than a decade ago to power search and other products, might be poised for takeoff.

On Wednesday, during Google's third-quarter earnings call, chief financial officer Anat Ashkenazi said the company expects a "meaningful revenue ramp in 2027" in TPU sales.

Cloud chief Thomas Kurian also said on the call that TPU sales were a "meaningful contributor" to the company's Q3 financials.

In its IPO paperwork filed this week, Anthropic said it planned to spend $114.5 billion on Google compute between April 2026 and July 2033. While it didn't specify how much of that would go to TPUs specifically, it estimated spending between $125 billion and $150 billion on TPU capacity from Google and other providers.

In the same filing, Anthropic said it's also using Amazon's Trainium chips and AMD's GPUs, as well as chips from Nvidia and Google.

All told, this might be Nvidia's nightmare scenario coming true. If companies are increasingly using a multichip strategy, it could hamper Nvidia's pricing power.

Google declined to comment, and Nvidia and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.

TPU takeoff?

Google's TPU business may only be getting started.

In notes published this month, Japanese banking group Mizuho projected TPU revenue of $28 billion for 2026 and $67 billion in 2027. Mizuho said Google could see that number reach as high as $100 billion in 2028, while TD Cowen's John Blackledge projected it could reach $138 billion, accounting for 34% of Google Cloud's 2028 revenue.

That number is still dwarfed by Nvidia, which reported $96.2 billion in revenue in the previous quarter alone, and the market reacted with a shrug on Wednesday as its share price stayed flat.

Some analysts, though, think the market is underestimating Google, especially as more companies look to reduce their reliance on Nvidia's GPUs.

"We believe Google's TPU hardware business is emerging as a materially larger opportunity than what is currently reflected in consensus estimates," Mizuho analysts wrote in a note published October 18, adding that selling TPUs outright — rather than renting them from Google's own data centers — could ease Google's aggressive capex spending.

And even if that spending continues to soar — and right now, there are no signs the foot is coming off the accelerator — analysts at Bank of America said Google's cash-splashing looks "relatively efficient" compared to its peers, as TPUs continue to power the company's own AI efforts.

For Google, it's the payoff of a decade-plus investment in silicon that was originally designed to make Search smarter. It could also act as something of a buffer against damage to its core search business as AI agents eat Google's lunch, Mizuho also said this month.

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TOKYO — When America’s AI bubble bursts, it will be a bad day for Nvidia and Intel. In Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo, it will be a national crisis. AI has become, almost overnight, what China once was for Asia: the growth engine everyone depends on. Investors from South Korea to Taiwan to Japan should spend […]

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A OpenAI, que detém o modelo de inteligência artificial (IA) ChatGPT, tem planos para adquirir semicondutores de IA à Google, avançou o The Information na terça-feira 27 de outubro, que cita uma fonte familiarizada com o dossier. Já a OpenAI pretende expandir a sua capacidade computacional e diversificar as suas fontes de poder de processamento.

A detentora do ChatGPT está também a desenvolver os seus próprios semicondutores, os Jalapeno, em parceria com a Broadcom, com o objetivo de suportar os seus modelos de IA ainda este ano, refere a publicação Investing.

A Google fechou a sessão de terça-feira 27 de outubro a subir 0,84% e em pré-mercado está a valorizar 1,14%. A Google apresenta esta quarta-feira 28 de outubro os seus resultados referentes ao terceiro trimestre no fecho da sessão.

• Anthropic is touting its ability to use different AI chips in its initial public offering filing.
• Analysts say a multichip strategy could weaken Nvidia's pricing power.
• Switching chips is hard and expensive, putting it out of reach for smaller players.

Anthropic is hedging its bets by using multiple chips to handle its AI work — a strategy that could eventually erode Nvidia's dominance.

The AI lab says it manages compute "as a single, fungible pool from multiple strategic partners" — with software that can direct its work to different chips depending on where they're most productive, according to Anthropic's S-1 filing, which came out Monday as the company prepares to go public.

Anthropic says it uses hardware from four chip families: Amazon Trainium, Google TPUs, Nvidia GPUs, and AMD GPUs.

That flexibility, which Anthropic said "took years and significant investment to build," could make major AI companies less dependent on Nvidia over time and give them more negotiating leverage, analysts said.

"The real exposure could be Nvidia's pricing power," said Patrick Moorhead, founder and CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, "because a customer that can shift work across four platforms negotiates very differently than one that can't."

Ashish Nadkarni, an analyst at IDC, added that a multichip approach also makes Anthropic less vulnerable to fluctuations in Nvidia's chip supply.

Breaking Nvidia's grip isn't easy

Although Anthropic's chip mix isn't new, the company is now pitching it as a core advantage to investors, Moorhead said.

The threat has its limits. Switching between chips is still difficult — especially when it comes to training AI models as opposed to running them, Moorhead said — and only the biggest AI companies have the resources to do it.

Anthropic also continues to spend billions on Nvidia compute, Moorhead said.

Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson, said that while other major companies like OpenAI likely take a multichip approach, it may not be worth the effort and investment for smaller players.

Brad Gastwirth, global head of research and market intelligence at Circular Technology, said Anthropic's strategy doesn't represent a major near-term threat. Having more chip options doesn't erase Nvidia's advantages in performance, networking, and software, he said.

There's a broader risk for Nvidia if AI compute becomes more of a commodity.

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has warned that if supply overtakes demand, it could drive down rental prices.

"GPUs, like airlines, have a very low marginal cost to run," he told Bloomberg last week. "The moment you have overcapacity, pricing goes into freefall."

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

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• Amazon launched a series of new devices this month, including Alexa tablets and Bee AI wearables.
• Rising memory costs forced "difficult trade-offs" on Amazon's device prices, sales, and profit.
• Amazon is seeking more Alexa revenue from enterprise sales, licensing, and ads.

Amazon launched a flurry of new consumer devices this month. Behind the scenes, rising memory costs are adding pressure to its already money-losing hardware business.

An internal planning document obtained by Business Insider shows Amazon forecasting a $612 million gross loss this year for its first-party devices business, compared with a leadership target of a $438 million loss.

The document said rising memory costs were "putting pressure" on the business's profitability, forcing "difficult trade-offs" among sales volumes, average selling prices, and gross profit.

The projected $612 million loss was at the gross profit level, meaning it did not account for all operating expenses, such as R&D, sales and marketing, and administrative costs.

The figures offer a rare glimpse into the pressure on Amazon's hardware business as it absorbs rising component costs. Other tech hardware companies, including industry leader Apple, face similar pressure from surging memory chip prices.

An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

A new wave of AI devices

Despite the pressure, Amazon continues to expand its consumer hardware lineup. Even if the company loses money on device sales, it can make money in other ways, such as subscription services, as more customers use its gadgets.

In October alone, the company introduced new Kindles, Alexa-powered tablets, Ring smart locks, and AI wearables under its Bee brand. The August planning document identified Bee and new smart glasses as strategic products still in an investment phase.

Amazon has historically used low-cost hardware to pull customers into a broader ecosystem of shopping and digital content. Rising component costs could make that strategy more expensive, forcing the company to raise prices.

The clearest shift is in Amazon's tablets. Earlier this month, the company phased out Fire tablets after 15 years and replaced the budget-friendly lineup with pricier Alexa Tablets powered by Alexa+. The new devices cost between $229.99 and $499.99, a notable increase from previous generations.

Not just Amazon

The planning document was prepared in August, the same month Amazon raised prices on products including Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers, and Fire TV devices.

The pressure extends beyond Amazon. Apple has raised prices on some Macs and iPads, while Microsoft and Sony have increased console prices. Dell, HP, and Lenovo also face higher memory costs.

The AI boom is helping drive the squeeze. Huge data center investments have increased demand for memory chips, while manufacturers have devoted more capacity to high-bandwidth memory used in AI servers. That has tightened supplies and raised prices for components used across consumer electronics.

Amazon is experiencing both sides of the boom. It expects roughly $220 billion in capital expenditures this year, largely to expand AWS data centers for AI demand, while higher component costs squeeze its consumer hardware business.

The rising cost of Alexa+

The August planning materials show Amazon reassessing both Alexa+ revenue and operating costs. They called for updated forecasts, expansion through enterprise sales and advertising, and more detailed AWS cost modeling.

Amazon is now confronting the cost of operating Alexa+ at scale. Business Insider reported in July that internal forecasts put Alexa+'s AWS cloud costs at roughly $1.7 billion in 2026, nearly triple the prior year's figure. Amazon was working to lower those costs by relying less on Anthropic's AI models and routing more requests to its own, cheaper systems.

A separate project called Moonraker, intended to give Alexa more advanced AI-agent capabilities, was projected to require more than $100 million in GPU spending this year. Amazon internally considered delaying or scaling back the initiative as one option for easing cost pressure, Business Insider previously reported.

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• Infrastructure startup Hyperbolic raised a $30 million round led by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's VC firm.
• The startup connects companies with neoclouds and makes their AI chips easier to use.
• Hyperbolic also wants to let customers resell unused computing power.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is backing an infrastructure startup that has raised $30 million to help companies rent compute across hundreds of different AI cloud providers.

Hyperbolic, an AI chip marketplace and software startup, has raised $50 million to date.

Walden Catalyst, the venture capital firm founded by Tan and former Samsung president Young Sohn, led the Series A-1 funding round. Dell Technologies Capital, General Catalyst, Vista Equity Partners, and Cambium Capital also participated.

As companies scramble for computing power, one challenge is that AI cloud providers, or neoclouds, use a mix of different chips, networking, and software. Hyperbolic helps customers find compute resources from different providers and creates software that makes it easier to use them all, rather than dealing with each one separately.

"It's been a really fragmented market that makes the customer experience really painful," said 31-year-old founder and CEO Jasper Zhang.

Hyperbolic also wants to let customers resell compute that they're paying for but no longer need.

The four-year-old startup works closely with about 30 neoclouds, including WhiteFiber and Vector Core Compute. It says it has roughly $200 million worth of compute connected to its software annually.

Hyperbolic previously raised a $12 million Series A round in 2024, led by Variant and Polychain Capital, following a $7 million seed round earlier that year. The company expects to have 50 employees by the end of the year and will use its funding to expand software tools for managing AI chips across different neoclouds.

Zhang said the company is aiming for $150 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year and is already breaking even. More than 250,000 developers, including teams at Modal, Higgsfield, and Daytona, use Hyperbolic.

Before founding the company, Zhang worked as a quantitative researcher at Citadel Securities. As Wall Street explores ways to financialize AI chips, he said his startup's plans to let companies resell unused compute could help pave the way for a futures market.

Here's a look at the pitch deck Hyperbolic used to raise its $30 million Series A-1. Slides have been redacted so that the deck can be shared publicly.

Anthropic sits atop a pyramid of business partners and suppliers, making it a barometer of the broader economy. Its initial public offering will have widespread implications.

President Trump’s novel deal-making is on display in upstate New York, where the administration is funneling Japanese funds into a government-owned chip factory.

© Cindy Schultz for The New York Times

• The CEO of ASML is tying his compensation to a personal mission to boost employee morale.
• Christophe Fouquet told employees in a memo seen by BI that ASML would link exec pay to employee satisfaction.
• It comes amid a major reorg at Europe's most valuable firm, which supplies chipmaking equipment to TSMC and Intel.

The CEO of Europe's most valuable company is linking his pay to a personal mission to boost employee morale.

Christophe Fouquet, the CEO of Dutch tech firm ASML, said last week that the company will incorporate employee satisfaction into its compensation strategy for top executives in an effort to quell discontent over a major reorganization, per a memo to employees obtained exclusively by Business Insider.

Fouquet was responding to the results of an annual survey that polled more than 38,000 of ASML's roughly 44,000 employees.

The survey results, seen by Business Insider, show that ASML's employee engagement index — a measure of worker satisfaction — fell from 78% last year to 73.5% this year.

In the memo, Fouquet said that the declining employee engagement scores "reflect a period of significant change" and acknowledged that it had been a "disruptive and emotional year" for the company.

He added that ASML's executive team had highlighted six questions in the survey and combined them into a new Workplace Experience Index, which would be incorporated into the company's Long-Term Incentive plan for executive compensation.

"In the coming years, it will directly influence the remuneration of senior leaders, including the Board of Management," Fouquet wrote, adding that strengthening the company's culture and reinforcing its values would be a personal priority in the coming year.

The six questions include whether employees feel they can share their opinions without fear of retaliation and if they have confidence in ASML's senior leadership team.

Employees will also be polled on whether they have a clear understanding of their role, whether they think their teams are operating efficiently and are well organized, and whether they feel their direct manager shows they care about them as an individual.

"We recognize the role that leaders play in creating a good workplace, and we now strengthen our commitment by including the workplace experience index in the remuneration of senior leadership, including our Board of Management," an ASML spokesperson told Business Insider.

It comes as ASML, the only firm on the planet capable of building the advanced EUV lithography machines critical for chipmakers like TSMC and Intel, attempts to slash bureaucracy with a sweeping org chart reorganization.

ASML announced in January that it could cut 1,700 jobs to reduce management layers and focus on engineering. Leaked documents previously reported by Business Insider show that these ongoing efforts have focused on reducing the number of managers at the company. The company later said it expected to cut fewer jobs than initially planned.

The ASML spokesperson said that its organizational changes were "necessary to strengthen ASML's ability to innovate" for its customers, but it also recognized they were "disruptive" for staff.

Going against tech's 'hardcore' trend

Major companies tying executive pay to employee satisfaction is uncommon, but not unheard of.

Companies like IBM and Aviva have previously included employee engagement in their compensation targets for top executives.

ASML's decision, however, runs counter to the cultural winds of Big Tech, which have seen some companies embark on relentless layoffs and push employees to work longer hours as part of a "hardcore" working shift.

Meta was an early, prominent leader of this push, with a series of layoffs that began in 2023 during Mark Zuckerberg's "year of efficiency" and, last year, cutting "low performers." CTO Andrew Bosworth at one point suggested that employees who disagreed with the company's direction should "consider working elsewhere."

Executives have since acknowledged internally that Meta went too far with its efficiency push, with Bosworth telling workers that morale at the company was almost the worst it has ever been.

Fouquet's memo to employees came days before ASML raised its 2026 sales forecast and pledged to accelerate production of its unique lithography machines as the AI boom fuels surging demand.

The company's machines are vital for producing the advanced semiconductors used to train and run AI models, and the rapid buildout of AI data centers has pushed ASML's shares up 45% this year.

One major prospective customer for the Dutch firm is Elon Musk, who is racing to build a massive semiconductor factory dubbed "Terafab" in Texas. Business Insider previously reported that Musk gave a virtual presentation to a private ASML employee conference in June to pitch Terafab, which is a joint project by Tesla and SpaceX.

Editor's note: October 23, 2026 — This story was updated to include a statement from ASML.

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America is figuring out the trick to reindustrialization, if it can learn the right lessons.

South Korean memory chipmakers must secure new United States licenses by year-end to keep shipping top-end American tools to their Chinese factories, after the Trump administration scrapped blanket permits last year. To win the permits, SK Hynix and Samsung must promise to build or expand factories in the US. SK Hynix’s one-year license to ship […]

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TSMC expects overseas manufacturing to reduce its consolidated gross margin by nearly two percentage points in 2026, with the impact widening to three to four points later in its expansion program. The company plans to spend $60 billion to $64 billion on capital expenditure this year. Its latest outlook calls for fourth-quarter revenue of up […]

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On September 30, SK Hynix’s American depositary shares closed at US$184.15 on the Nasdaq. Earlier that day in Seoul, one ordinary share closed at 1,776,000 won, about $1,308.80. Ten ADSs represent one Seoul share, so each ADS’s slice was worth about $130.88. Comparing those two closing prices gives the ADSs a 40.7% premium. The markets […]

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