Intel

📢 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗡: $Astera Labs(ALAB.US) Astera Labs Launches New Leo Memory Solutions for Agentic AI Infrastructure

👉 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀:

➤ 𝗔𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝘀 launches new 𝗟𝗲𝗼 𝗫-𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 and 𝗟𝗲𝗼 𝟮 memory controllers.

➤ Leo X-Series targets 𝗞𝗩-𝗰𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲-intensive, long-context agentic AI inference workloads.

➤ Leo X-Series delivers up to 𝟲𝟮% faster time-to-first-token.

➤ Platform delivers up to 𝟮𝟮% more tokens per second.

➤ Leo 2 doubles 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘄𝗶𝗱𝘁𝗵 and capacity versus previous generation.

➤ New controllers support 𝗗𝗗𝗥𝟰, 𝗗𝗗𝗥𝟱, 𝗣𝗖𝗜𝗲 𝟲 and 𝗖𝗫𝗟 𝟯.𝟮.

➤ Leo 2 enables memory expansion, pooling, sharing, and 𝗗𝗗𝗥𝟰 reuse.

➤ Astera reports growing design wins across 𝗔𝗜 𝗹𝗮𝗯𝘀, hyperscalers, and neoclouds.

➤ New Leo products are 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆 with hyperscaler customers.

➤ Development involved 𝗔𝗠𝗗, 𝗔𝗿𝗺, 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹 and major memory suppliers.

👉 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀:

➤ Agentic AI is rapidly increasing demand for 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 and bandwidth.

➤ Faster KV-cache access can improve 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 economics and responsiveness.

➤ Memory pooling and reuse could reduce expensive 𝗗𝗥𝗔𝗠 over-provisioning.

➤ Growing design wins could expand Astera's exposure to 𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸-𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗜 infrastructure.

👉 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀:

𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁 𝗞𝗶𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗹, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy:

“Agentic AI adoption is outpacing the industry's ability to provision memory for it, and that gap is widening every quarter," said Matt Kimball, vice president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "That growth is landing at the worst possible time for memory supply, with DDR5 tight and pricing climbing, so every gigabyte already deployed has to work harder. The new Leo X-Series and Leo 2 E and P-Series Smart Memory Controllers immediately address KV-cache-intensive AI workloads, improve memory utilization, and reliably reuse previously deployed memory across both AI and general-purpose cloud infrastructure, instead of simply buying more of it."

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝗢𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗮, Senior Vice President, Compute Connectivity Group at Astera Labs:

“Agentic AI is where the economics of AI infrastructure are being decided, and those economics depend on putting every usable gigabyte of memory to work,” said Thad Omura, senior vice president, Compute Connectivity Group at Astera Labs. “The enhanced Leo family gives infrastructure providers purpose-built ways to connect memory to accelerators, CPUs, and hosts across the rack—turning previously deployed and stranded capacity into a resource that new AI and cloud workloads can use. We're seeing that translate into broader customer engagement across AI labs, hyperscalers, and neoclouds.”

𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗛𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘂𝘁𝗵, Corporate Vice President, Architecture and Strategy at AMD:

“Agentic AI is increasing demand for balanced systems that can move and process more data without sacrificing efficiency. AMD EPYC processors deliver leadership performance, exceptional memory bandwidth and capacity, and high-speed I/O across the broadly deployed x86 platform. Our collaboration with Astera Labs around CXL extends that foundation, giving customers greater flexibility to scale memory-intensive AI and cloud workloads and improve infrastructure utilization.”

𝗘𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘇, Vice President of Go-To-Market, Cloud AI, Arm:

“As AI infrastructure evolves, agentic AI, reinforcement learning and database workloads are driving demand for higher-capacity memory. Arm and Astera Labs are working together to pair Arm AGI CPU with Leo CXL Smart Memory Controllers, helping customers meet these growing requirements while maintaining scalable performance.”

𝗦𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗞𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝗮, Fellow at Intel Data Center Group:

"CXL was created to bring greater flexibility and efficiency to memory across the data center. Technologies like Astera Labs' Leo Smart Memory Controllers help turn that vision into reality, demonstrating how ecosystem innovation can help customers get more out of their AI infrastructure and support the next generation of data-intensive workloads."

𝗝𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘀𝗲𝗼𝗸 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶, Vice President of Product Planning Team at Samsung Electronics:

"We are contributing to the evolution of AI infrastructure through the development of CXL memory solutions designed to help address the growing memory demands of modern data centers. We are excited to collaborate with Astera Labs to help ensure our DRAM solution offer strong interoperability within the evolving CXL ecosystem, and remain committed to supporting a scalable, high-performance memory architecture for the AI era."

A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY.

Here's a full recap:

1. FOMC decision week began with a clear AI rotation: long software, short semis. Nvidia $NVIDIA(NVDA.US), Marvell $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US), Sandisk $Sandisk(SNDK.US), AMD $AMD(AMD.US), Nebius $Nebius(NBIS.US), Micron $Micron Tech(MU.US), CoreWeave $Coreweave(CRWV.US), and Intel $Intel(INTC.US) were down 3%-7%, while Palantir $Palantir Tech(PLTR.US), Atlassian $Atlassian(TEAM.US), CrowdStrike $CrowdStrike(CRWD.US), ServiceNow $ServiceNow(NOW.US), Adobe $Adobe(ADBE.US), and Intuit $Intuit(INTU.US) were up 2%-5%. The move reflected a market trying to reprice the AI trade after the weekend’s safety debate around Dario’s essay. Semis and neoclouds sold off because their bull case is tied directly to continued AI capex growth which the market interpreted as slowing down if the pace of frontier model development slows down. At the same time, Trump rejected the calls to slow down as he posted that AI needs a “STRONG AND SMART” president rather than guardrails, said the U.S. was leading China in AI, and separately said Iran wanted to make a deal and that the US was open to engaging. Oil crossed $105 and the US 10-year treasury yield crossed 5%. The Fed will make their decision for a rate hike on Wednesday.

2. Palantir $Palantir Tech(PLTR.US), Nvidia $NVIDIA(NVDA.US), and Booz Allen Hamilton are reportedly restricting Anthropic’s Fable model for sensitive work over concerns about its data-retention policies, according to The Information. Some enterprise customers are demanding irrevocable zero-data-retention guarantees before putting proprietary information into the model. Anthropic reportedly introduced rolling 30-day usage logs for safety monitoring in June, while its planned option for eligible customers to store logs themselves can still be revoked. Palantir is withholding Fable from its platform until it receives irrevocable zero-data-retention guarantees, Nvidia is limiting Fable to less-sensitive work while using Nemotron for sensitive internal projects, and Booz Allen is excluding Fable from work involving its proprietary cybersecurity software.

3. Trump called Jensen Huang during the All-In Summit and was put on speaker phone, where he defended the AI data center buildout and pushed back on recent concerns. “I'm telling you it's all a hoax. The data centers are great. They make people wealthy. They make states wealthy. AI is bigger than the internet. These people are playing right into the hands of China. We're not going to let that happen,” Trump said. Jensen responded, “You're right, we're not going to let that happen sir.” Jensen also said the fears from over the weekend were made up and that the companies involved have the control they need to navigate the concerns.

4. OpenAI has acquired Glass Imaging, an AI camera startup founded by former Apple engineers, for more than $300M. Glass is working to bring DSLR-like image quality to smartphones, and the deal comes as OpenAI and Jony Ive continue developing new consumer hardware. OpenAI’s exact plans for Glass remain unclear, but the acquisition is notable given Glass was valued at roughly $100M just last year.

5. Truist initiated Nebius $Nebius(NBIS.US) at Buy with a $355 price target, calling it a scaling AI-native hyperscaler still early in its infrastructure buildout. The firm believes consensus 2027E ARR estimates are conservative given recent pricing of $20M-$25M/MW for 1-3 year deals and $40M-$50M/MW for shorter-duration contracts. Truist sees a major opportunity ahead, estimating a $2.1T annual revenue opportunity at the cloud layer by 2030E, with scarcity and contract economics supporting upside to pricing and revenue. The firm also sees multiple paths for Nebius to reach 20%-30% adjusted EBIT margins over the medium term.

6. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) with 3.2M contracts, $Tesla(TSLA.US) with 2.4M contracts, $Apple(AAPL.US) with 1.6M contracts, $Micron Tech(MU.US) with 1.1M contracts, $Amazon(AMZN.US) with 957K contracts, $Meta Platforms(META.US) with 906K contracts, $Microsoft(MSFT.US) with 874K contracts, $Intel(INTC.US) with 835K contracts, $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) with 734K contracts, and $SpaceX(SPCX.US) with 688K contracts.

7. U.S. consumers aged 40-49 now account for 26.8% of new consumer bankruptcies, their highest share since Q3 2015 and the largest of any age group. The 50-59 group represents another 23.1%, bringing Americans aged 40-59 to 49.9% of all new consumer bankruptcies, the highest share since Q1 2017. For perspective, that figure peaked at 54.3% in Q4 2011 after the 2008 Financial Crisis. Consumers aged 70+ now make up 21.5% of new bankruptcies, their highest share since Q2 2017, while Americans aged 18-29 account for just 5.9%, the lowest since Q2 2014.

8. JPMorgan upgraded IREN $IREN(IREN.US) to Overweight and raised its price target to $65 from $46, saying the company is emerging as a top-tier neocloud provider. JPM cited IREN’s NVIDIA partnership, stronger customer momentum, and rising AI infrastructure pricing, noting neocloud contracts have moved from roughly $10-$15/W to $15-$20/W+, while customer prepayments of 25%-50% are helping fund GPU purchases. IREN has raised its year-end 2026 ARR target to as much as $4B, with roughly $1B of operating ARR today. JPM also highlighted IREN’s Microsoft buildout, recent deal with an unnamed frontier AI lab. Looking into 2027, JPM believes IREN’s planned ~0.5 GW expansion could command materially higher pricing, with deals above $15/W creating significant upside to the outlook.

9. Global semiconductor revenue hit a record $425B in Q2 2026, up 31.4% QoQ, according to Omdia. Memory accounted for more than half of total revenue, driven by AI demand and rising DRAM, NAND, and NOR pricing. Even excluding memory, semiconductor revenue grew more than 10% QoQ, well above the historical Q2 average of just over 3%. The industry generated $752B in revenue in the first half of 2026 alone, and Omdia expects Q3 revenue to surpass $500B, pushing the first nine months of 2026 above $1.25T.

10. Apple $Apple(AAPL.US) has begun rolling out its new Siri AI in beta with iOS 27, adding personal context across messages, emails, and photos, plus onscreen awareness and systemwide app actions. The new Siri can find information across a user’s device, understand what is on screen, draft emails, add calendar events, and take actions across supported apps. Apple says the new Apple Intelligence architecture uses its own foundation models built in collaboration with Google Gemini, with processing split between on-device models and Private Cloud Compute.

11. U.S. diesel prices have officially risen to a record $6.20/gallon, up 78% over the last 9 months. In California, diesel has surged to a record $8.14/gallon, with some areas approaching $9.00/gallon. The spike comes as the U.S. enters peak diesel-demand season while supply remains historically tight. Jet fuel is also surging, now at $4.35/gallon, up 61% over the last 10 weeks, with prices rising another 10% in the past week as U.S. oil pushes above $100/barrel. Airline fares were already up 23% YoY in August, and if fuel stays elevated, September CPI could show fares rising as much as 30%.

12. The Clarity Act $Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF(BTC.US) $ETH moved back into focus after Senate Republicans released a “final” draft ahead of Tuesday’s cloture vote, saying the text includes 126 Democratic-requested changes after more than a year of talks. The bill still needs 60 votes to advance, with Republicans holding 53 seats. Key updates include new ethics language requiring covered officials and spouses to divest certain crypto interests or place them in a qualified blind trust, a role for state attorneys general in enforcement, and a Treasury “circuit breaker” that could restrict stablecoin rewards if payment stablecoins trigger major deposit flight from community banks. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to hold a key preliminary cloture vote on the Clarity Act on Tuesday afternoon, September 15, 2026, at approximately 2:15 PM ET.

WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

Source: amit

Morgan Stanley has CapEx of CSPs ~12% in 2028, with spending on AI semiconductors expected to increase even more.

> CoWoS/CoPoS/EMIB-T capacity is estimated to grow by 50% in 2028, while infrastructure spending (such as factories and AI data centers) will remain flat, and memory prices will grow moderately in 2028.

> TSMC's CoWoS capacity will expand from 130,000 wafers per month in 2026, 200,000 wafers per month in 2027, to 260,000 wafers per month in 2028.

> MI500 series (codename Arcadia) is expected to enter small-scale production by the end of 2027. Production capacity for both the MI455 and MI450 is likely to reach approximately 500,000–650,000 units.

> TSMC's total CoWoS-L orders will increase by 200% year-on-year to 210,000 wafers in 2027.

> TSMC's CoPoS capacity is projected to reach 50,000–100,000 wafers per month in 2028 and 100,000–200,000 wafers per month in 2029, but this will depend on the results of the trial production.

> MS forecasts that TSMC's CoPoS capacity is projected to reach 50,000–100,000 wafers per month in 2028 and 100,000–200,000 wafers per month in 2029, but this will depend on the results of the trial production.

$Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) $AMD(AMD.US) $Intel(INTC.US) $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) $Amazon(AMZN.US) $Meta Platforms(META.US) $Microsoft(MSFT.US)

Taiwan media have misinterpreted a speech by President Trump to mean big new tariffs are coming for semiconductors. They aren't.

His numbers were rhetorical – arguing what past presidents should have done, not a warning of what he's planning.

He also indicated the tariffs had do to with Intel, which had "lost its way" and asked him for help, and framed the 10% stock deal as protection money.

Here’s the text, and a link to the speech below:

President Trump: "Intel. Intel is a good, really good company. But what happened is, stupid presidents allowed the chip business to leave our country and go to Taiwan. And, stupid. All they had to do is put tariffs on they wouldn't have left. In other words, Taiwan, if you're going to sell chips to America, you're going to got to pay 100%, got to pay 200%, 50%, anything and you wouldn't have had— But they didn't do that until I came along.

And what happened is Intel became old and tired and got in trouble. And they came to see me. The head of Intel was a nice man actually, and he said, “Sir, I need your help.” And he said why, whatever it was. And I said, “Well, you came to the right place. I’m the only one that can help you…I said, here’s the deal. Give the United States of America 10% of Intel." Now, the thing was worth like $120 billion. You know, it lost its way, but it’s still worth a lot of money. I said, “Give the United States of America 10% of Intel and I’ll get this problem solved." He stood up immediately and said, “You have a deal.” And I said, “I should have asked for more.” [51:13]

Source: Dan Nystedt

🚨Leopold/Situational Awareness returns?

Since last Friday, there's been a string of significant Flex calls bought in concentrated AI names: $315M total options premiums / $1.1B of delta / $5.8M of vega.

Positions:

- $Sandisk(SNDK.US): Jan 2040/2200 calls - $57M prem, $198M delta, $1.04M vega.

- $Bloom Energy(BE.US): Jan 250/310 calls - $48M prem, $140M delta, $565k vega.

- $Intel(INTC.US): Jan 105/115 calls - $48M prem, $185M delta, $870k vega.

- $Coreweave(CRWV.US): Jan 105/115 calls - $43M prem, $160M delta, $770k vega.

- $DRAM: Jan 65/70 calls - $43M prem, $173M delta, $855k vega.

- $SK Hynix(SKHY.US): Jan 190/210 calls - $39M prem, $148M delta, $710k vega.

- $AMD(AMD.US): Jan 540/580 calls - $36M prem, $193M delta, $1.08M vega.

It'll be confirmed as Leopold if we start to see some big FLEX calls in $Micron Tech(MU.US) / $Nebius(NBIS.US) / $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US) soon.

Data via CBOE. NMR + GS desks aligned on "single mystery buyer" narrative...

📢 𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗡: Beep Closes Mobileye-Led Series B, Bringing Total Capital Raised to About $130 Million - $Mobileye Global(MBLY.US) $Intel(INTC.US)

👉 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀:

➤ 𝗕𝗲𝗲𝗽 closes Series B funding led by autonomous-driving leader 𝗠𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲𝘆𝗲.

➤ Funding brings Beep's total capital raised to approximately $𝟭𝟯𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻.

➤ Existing investors also participated in the latest financing round.

➤ Capital will accelerate commercial deployment of 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 networks.

➤ Beep plans to expand its 𝗺𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆-𝗮𝘀-𝗮-𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 offerings.

➤ Investment will support continued deployment of Beep's 𝗔𝗜-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗢𝗦 platform.

➤ AutonomOS manages and orchestrates 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜 transportation networks.

➤ Companies target fixed-route and 𝗼𝗻-𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗶𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁 services at commercial scale.

➤ Beep will deepen collaboration with technology and 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰-𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 partners.

👉 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀:

➤ Mobileye's investment strengthens Beep's ability to scale 𝗨.𝗦. autonomous transportation.

➤ Funding could accelerate commercialization of 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜 mobility networks.

➤ Partnership combines Mobileye's AV technology with Beep's deployment expertise.

➤ Expansion could broaden autonomous transit across multiple service and vehicle models.

👉 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀:

𝗞𝗼𝗯𝗶 𝗢𝗵𝗮𝘆𝗼𝗻, Chief Operations Officer at Mobileye:

"Mobileye and Beep have been working closely on AV deployment projects, and our excitement for the future of improving transportation through applied physical AI on the road has never been greater. Beep plays an essential role in the emerging AV ecosystem across the United States, and its deployment platform will become increasingly important as more AV services come to market across vehicle types and business models."

𝗞𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗶𝗱, CEO and Chairman of Beep:

"This strategic investment round, led by Mobileye and supported by our longstanding investor partners, positions Beep to deliver fully on its vision. The investment enables us to strengthen and expand our shared autonomous mobility solutions, helping communities move people in ways that are safer, smarter, and more connected."