Nvidia Plans $25 Billion Bond Offering

Qualcomm is in negotiations to acquire Tenstorrent, an AI chip design startup, for between $8 billion and $10 billion, according to sources with direct knowledge of the deal. The acquisition would represent a significant premium over Tenstorrent's previous valuation and would expand Qualcomm's capabilities in AI and data center chips. Deal terms remain fluid, with discussions ongoing and the potential for performance-based payments similar to past chip startup acquisitions.

Broadcom announced a $35 billion chip order funding venture with Apollo and Blackstone to provide computing capacity for Anthropic, with Broadcom serving as a financial backstop. The move mirrors Nvidia's vendor financing strategy to accelerate chip sales, but represents a larger financial risk for Broadcom given its smaller balance sheet compared to Nvidia.

Artificial Analysis released AgentPerf, the first benchmark designed specifically for agentic AI workloads, showing NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra NVL72 platform delivering 20x more agents per megawatt than Hopper-based systems. The benchmark reflects the fundamentally different performance characteristics of agentic AI, which chains dozens to hundreds of LLM calls with tool execution rather than single-turn completions. Results are based on real coding agent trajectories across 12+ programming languages, providing infrastructure providers and enterprises with direct metrics for deployment decisions.

Meta's acquisition of semiconductor startup Rivos, intended to accelerate in-house AI chip development and reduce Nvidia dependence, is struggling six months after closing. According to 11 current and former employees, the company faces strategy uncertainty, shifting leadership priorities, and internal tensions between Rivos staff and Meta's existing chips team. The challenges highlight broader difficulties Meta faces in building a viable chip business despite significant capital investment in AI infrastructure.