Explore the foundational technologies and hardware driving the artificial intelligence boom. From next-generation data centers and custom silicon to advanced networking and energy solutions, discover the deep tech investments building the physical and digital layers that power the AI era.
Firmus pulled in $2B from Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street, pushing its valuation past $10.5B in four months. The scarce resource is no longer money. It is the grid.
Velaura AI, the chip designer formerly known as Auradine, closed a $110M Series A valuing the company above $1B. Its Titan Core silicon IP claims a 2-4x performance-per-watt gain for AI accelerators, backed by more than 30 million shipped ASICs. Three scenarios through mid-2027.
Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Amazon and Alphabet hold $1.09 trillion in uncommenced data center leases — nearly four times what they recognize on balance sheets. Rating agencies are already adjusting.
First-party LLM API list prices, early August 2026: floor $0.14 per million input tokens (DeepSeek V4 Flash), ceiling $30.00 (GPT-5.5-pro). The price war moved to cache reads and cost-per-task is displacing cost-per-token; Anthropic cancelled a Sonnet 5 increase on August 11.
Lumilens emerged from stealth with a $700M Series C at a $5.51B valuation, passing $900M in total funding. Its LumiCore platform sells scale-out transceivers and scale-up interconnects. The open question is whether Nvidia and Broadcom squeeze it into a supplier role.
AMD's data center business grew 107% in one quarter and now carries 58% of the company. The second-half test: whether the Helios rack-scale ramp converts into margin.
The grid can move more power than it does. Dynamic line rating uses sensors and weather forecasting to rate lines in real time, unlocking 20-30% extra capacity. Heimdall Power's 900 km National Grid framework shows it is now bought at system scale.
Three months ago Panthalassa was valued at roughly $1 billion. Now investors are reportedly pricing it at $2 billion before a single commercial node has floated in the open ocean. The Information reported on August 6 that the company is raising $225 million at a post-money valuation approaching $2