Tags: energy efficiency

Peak XV Partners has led a Series A investment in C2i Semiconductors, an Indian startup developing plug‑and‑play, system‑level power solutions for AI data centers. C2i aims to reduce the 15%‑20% energy loss that occurs when high‑voltage power is stepped down to GPUs, potentially cutting overall power consumption by about 10%. The company, founded by former Texas Instruments executives, is preparing its first silicon designs for validation with data‑center operators and hyperscalers. The investment reflects growing concern that power, rather than compute, is becoming the primary constraint on scaling AI infrastructure. Lire la suite

CVector, an AI startup that builds a brain‑like software layer for heavy industry, announced a $5 million seed round led by Powerhouse Ventures. The funding will accelerate the rollout of its platform, which translates small operational actions into measurable cost savings for clients such as utilities, manufacturers, and chemical producers. With a growing roster of customers and a team of about a dozen engineers, CVector aims to embed AI‑driven economics into the core of industrial decision‑making. Lire la suite

Researchers in China have unveiled photonic AI chips that reportedly outperform conventional Nvidia GPUs by up to 100 times on narrowly defined generative tasks. The hybrid ACCEL system combines optical and analog electronic components, while the all‑optical LightGen chip contains more than two million photonic neurons. Both platforms claim dramatic improvements in speed and energy efficiency for image‑related workloads, though they are targeted at specialized applications rather than general‑purpose computing. Lire la suite

Researchers from Purdue University and the Georgia Institute of Technology argue that the growing energy demands of artificial‑intelligence models stem from the longstanding "memory wall"—the gap between fast processors and slower memory. By adopting brain‑inspired architectures that integrate processing and memory, such as spiking neural networks and compute‑in‑memory (CIM) designs, they claim AI can become far more efficient. The study highlights potential benefits for devices ranging from medical equipment to drones, suggesting a shift away from traditional von Neumann designs could dramatically cut power consumption while preserving performance. Lire la suite

Extropic, a startup founded by former Google quantum‑computing engineers Guillaume Verdon and Trevor McCourt, has introduced its first working probabilistic chip, XTR‑0. The device uses thermodynamic sampling units (TSUs) and probabilistic bits (p‑bits) instead of traditional binary bits, promising far greater energy efficiency than conventional CPUs, GPUs and accelerators from companies such as Nvidia, AMD and Intel. Extropic has shared the hardware with a handful of AI labs, weather‑modeling startups and government representatives. Atmo’s CEO Johan Mathe is testing the chip for high‑resolution weather forecasting, while Extropic also released TRHML software that simulates the chip on standard GPUs. A larger chip, Z‑1, featuring 250,000 p‑bits, is slated for future development. Lire la suite

Microsoft announced progress on a microfluidic cooling technique that channels liquid coolant directly through tiny channels etched onto silicon chips. Lab tests show the method can remove heat up to three times more effectively than traditional cold‑plate systems and cut peak chip temperatures by roughly 65 percent. By delivering cooling straight to the silicon, the approach could enable more powerful processors, tighter server packing, and lower energy use in data centers. Microsoft says the technology may also support future 3‑D chip architectures, though broader deployment will require manufacturing changes and further testing. Lire la suite