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Intel unveils new AI data center chip “Crescent Island” to relaunch AI ambitions

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Intel has announced plans to launch a new artificial intelligence chip for data centers next year, marking a renewed effort to reclaim ground in the booming AI hardware market dominated by Nvidia and AMD.

The new GPU, named Crescent Island, will prioritize energy efficiency and be optimized for AI inference workloads, Intel Chief Technology Officer Sachin Katti said at the Open Compute Summit on Tuesday. “It emphasizes our focus on inference, optimized for AI, and for delivering the best performance per dollar,” Katti said.

The announcement represents Intel’s latest bid to reenter the AI race after CEO Lip-Bu Tan pledged to restart the company’s stalled AI programs, including the Gaudi and Falcon Shores lines. Despite trailing competitors, Intel hopes to capture a meaningful share of the rapidly expanding data center market fueled by generative AI adoption since ChatGPT’s 2022 debut.

Crescent Island will feature 160 gigabytes of memory, though slower than the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in AMD and Nvidia’s top-tier AI chips. The chip will be based on Intel’s existing consumer GPU architecture, underscoring the company’s modular approach that allows customers to mix and match chips from multiple vendors.

Intel also committed to releasing new data center AI chips annually, matching the cadence of rivals AMD, Nvidia, and major cloud providers developing their own silicon.

The move follows Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel, which gave it a 4% stake and launched a partnership to co-develop future AI and PC chips. Katti said the collaboration aims to ensure Intel CPUs remain integrated into AI systems worldwide as the company seeks to position itself as an indispensable player in next-generation computing.

Oracle to deploy AMD’s MI450 AI chips in major cloud expansion

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Oracle announced plans to integrate Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD) upcoming MI450 artificial intelligence chips into its cloud infrastructure, with deployment scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The companies said the initial rollout will include 50,000 processors, with further expansion expected through 2027 and beyond.

The partnership marks a major win for AMD, securing another top-tier client for its next-generation AI chips, while giving Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) a competitive boost in the global race to provide compute power for AI model training and deployment. “Demand for large-scale AI capacity is accelerating as next-generation AI models outgrow the limits of current clusters,” the companies said in a joint statement.

The announcement comes as demand for AI hardware surges amid the explosion of applications like ChatGPT. AMD’s shares rose over 3% in premarket trading, defying broader market weakness driven by renewed U.S.-China trade tensions, while Oracle’s stock slipped about 1%.

AMD recently unveiled a multi-year deal with OpenAI to supply the same MI450 chips, in an agreement that gives the ChatGPT developer an option to acquire up to 10% of AMD. The companies are also collaborating on a 1-gigawatt AI data facility based on the chip architecture.

The new AI superclusters at Oracle will use AMD’s “Helios” rack design, a fully integrated system combining GPUs and CPUs, mirroring Nvidia’s own rack-scale solutions. The deal underscores AMD’s ambition to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in the high-performance AI hardware market.

ASML poised to benefit from AI megadeals and chip expansion wave

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Dutch chipmaking equipment giant ASML is expected to benefit from a surge in AI-related megadeals between major technology firms and semiconductor manufacturers, with investors anticipating a strong outlook when it reports third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Analysts believe ASML’s top customers — including TSMC, SK Hynix, and Samsung — are preparing to ramp up production capacity through 2026 and beyond, driven by a global race to expand AI data centres. These expectations have already boosted ASML’s stock by 32% since early September, outpacing the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which rose 15% in the same period.

Forecasts compiled by Visible Alpha suggest new bookings — a key industry indicator — will total 5.36 billion euros ($6.21 billion) for the quarter, following 9.48 billion euros in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, net income is projected to rise 1.4% year-on-year to 2.11 billion euros, according to LSEG IBES data.

Recent multi-billion-dollar deals between NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Samsung, Meta, and Oracle are fuelling optimism for ASML, whose machines — costing more than $300 million each — are essential for producing advanced chip circuitry.

However, analysts note that building fabrication plants can take several years. They want to hear whether ASML’s clients can accelerate these expansion plans amid rising demand. “Every memory chipmaker is likely to increase production capacity for AI,” said Michael Roeg of Degroof Petercam, citing Micron, SK Hynix, Samsung, and Chinese competitors.