Category: 3. Business

News highlights:

• Arm–NVIDIA partnership continues to grow, driving new levels of co-design and collaboration in the AI era
• Ecosystem partners can integrate efficient Arm-based compute into NVIDIA NVLink Fusion ecosystem with full coherency and high bandwidth
• As demand for Neoverse continues to grow in the AI data center, customers now have greater choice in connecting workload acceleration to the Arm platform

AI is transforming data center computing in what we see as a once-in-a-generation architectural transformation. As AI models and workloads scale exponentially, power has become the rate limiter — making energy-efficient compute the key to unlocking the next wave of AI innovation. In this new era, success is no longer measured by raw performance alone, but by intelligence per watt: how much useful AI compute you can deliver for every unit of energy consumed.

At the center of this transformation is Arm Neoverse, the compute platform purpose-built for power-efficient, high-performance scaling. Today, Neoverse has been deployed in more than one billion cores and is on track to reach 50 percent market share across the top hyperscalers worldwide in 2025. Every major provider — AWS, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Meta—is building on Neoverse, and next-generation AI data center sites such as the Stargate project are anchored on Arm as the compute platform, underscoring Arm’s central role in powering AI at scale.

To meet this accelerating demand, Arm is extending the Neoverse platform with NVIDIA NVLink Fusion, bringing the same performance, bandwidth, and efficiency first pioneered with NVIDIA Grace Hopper and Grace Blackwell platforms to the entire ecosystem. 

“Arm and NVIDIA are working together to set a new standard for AI infrastructure,” said Rene Haas, CEO, Arm. “Extending the Arm Neoverse platform with NVIDIA NVLink Fusion brings Grace Blackwell-class performance to every partner building on Arm — a milestone that reflects the incredible momentum we’re seeing in the data center.”

“NVLink Fusion is the connective fabric of the AI era — linking every CPU, GPU and accelerator into one unified rack-scale architecture,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Together with Arm, we’re extending this vision across Neoverse to empower innovators everywhere to design the next generation of specialized AI infrastructure.”

Two years ago, Arm and NVIDIA achieved an industry first with the NVIDIA Grace Hopper platform, and NVIDIA NVLink, delivering coherent CPU–GPU integration that redefined high-performance computing. To continue innovating at this pace, the ecosystem needs choice and flexibility — and NVLink Fusion gives partners the ability to connect Arm-based compute with their preferred accelerators through a coherent, high-bandwidth interface.

The strong momentum and sustained customer demand for Grace Blackwell are now fueling expansion of NVLink Fusion across the full Neoverse ecosystem, enabling partners to build differentiated, energy-efficient AI systems on Arm that meet the performance and scalability demands of the AI era.

Ecosystem partners are adopting NVLink Fusion to remove memory and bandwidth bottlenecks that limit AI system performance. NVIDIA NVLink Fusion was built to interface with AMBA CHI C2C (Coherent Hub Interface Chip-to-Chip) — a technology invented by Arm that provides the critical protocol definition for a coherent, high-bandwidth connection between CPUs and accelerators.

Building on this foundation, Arm is enabling the Neoverse platform with the latest edition of the AMBA CHI C2C protocol — ensuring C2C compatibility with NVIDIA NVLink Fusion — so that Neoverse-based SoCs can move data seamlessly between Arm-based CPUs and partners’ preferred accelerators. The result is quicker integration, faster time to market, higher-bandwidth accelerated compute, and greater flexibility for ecosystem partners building next-generation AI systems.

The Arm–NVIDIA partnership continues to grow, driving new levels of co-design and collaboration that deliver intelligence per watt, shaping the architecture of the AI era.

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Funds run by HPS began lending to companies tied to Brahmbhatt in 2020, with the loans backed by receivables the firms claimed were owed by major telecom groups, according to the report.

In a Delaware court filing earlier in the year, funds managed by HPS accused Brahmbhatt and his controlled companies of “an extraordinarily brazen and widespread fraud” alleging the documents to verify the receivables were fabricated, as per the report.

Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) in Brooklyn are leading the probe, the report said.

Of the $430 million HPS lent to Brahmbhatt-linked firms, roughly half was funded with leverage from BNP Paribas, the report added, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.

BlackRock, EDNY, and BNP Paribas declined to comment. Brahmbhatt did not respond immediately.

The report says that the HPS funds were specialist asset-backed finance vehicles – a niche segment of the private credit market, which has seen some recent risks emerge.

Recent bankruptcies of First Brands, a major U.S. auto-parts supplier, and subprime lender Tricolor have intensified concerns over the stability of the U.S.’s vast private credit market.

The fallout, which includes billions in undisclosed debt and losses for high-profile banks and funds, has prompted scrutiny of aggressive lending structures and opaque finance practices.

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This story was adapted from a version published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Read the original here.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has renewed funding for the Quantum Systems Accelerator (QSA), a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in partnership with Sandia National Laboratories. CU Boulder is one of 15 partner institutions on the research center.

QSA builds and demonstrates quantum technologies and computing prototypes to transform quantum information science into breakthroughs for society. These advances will enable scientists to use quantum computers to design new materials, discover new chemicals and reactions, and accelerate breakthroughs in energy, physics, biology, and chemistry.

The total planned funding for QSA is $125 million over five years, with $25 million in year one and out-year funding contingent on congressional appropriations.

“This renewed funding is a vital investment in advancing quantum technology for our nation,” said Massimo Ruzzene, senior vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes at CU Boulder. “Together with other key initiatives like the National Quantum Nanofab facility and the Quantum Systems through Entangled Science and Engineering (Q-SEnSE) Quantum Leap Challenge Institute, the QSA strengthens CU Boulder’s rapidly expanding capacity to translate quantum advances into real-world solutions benefitting society.”

QSA is one of five National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers established by DOE in 2020 to expand the frontier of what’s possible in quantum computing, communication, sensing, and materials in ways that will advance basic science for energy, security, communication, and logistics. Together, the centers have strengthened the national quantum information science ecosystem, achieving scientific and technological breakthroughs as well as training the next-generation quantum workforce. DOE has renewed funding for all five centers.

The center combines world-leading expertise and capabilities across national labs, academia, and industry. QSA will also partner with industry, such as Nobel Prize winner John Martinis’ Qolab, to advance quantum technology for DOE and commercial applications. These public-private partnerships will ensure that QSA’s science and technology advances are industry-relevant at every stage.

CU Boulder participates in QSA through the Q-SEnSE research institute. Q-SEnSE, which is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, launched in 2020 and focuses on, among other goals, exploring how advanced quantum sensing can discover new fundamental physics.

“With the renewal of DOE funding for the Quantum Systems Accelerator, we at CU Boulder are in a great position to deepen our contributions to national quantum innovation by connecting QSA efforts with the NSF-funded Q-SEnSE Institute and our CUbit Quantum Initiative,” said Inese Berzina-Pitcher, executive director of Q-SEnSE. “I am excited for what the next five years will bring as we work with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and our QSA partners to advance quantum science and technology.”

Among QSA’s many achievements in its first five years, the center made world-leading advancements on three promising qubit technologies: trapped ions, neutral atoms, and superconducting circuits. These achievements are laying the foundation for building practical quantum systems that can tackle real-world scientific and energy challenges and have strengthened QSA’s role in keeping the U.S. at the forefront of transformative quantum technologies.

“QSA plays a vital role in advancing QIS across the U.S. by bridging the gap between national labs, academia, and industry. By fostering collaboration, QSA ensures that breakthroughs can move from experimental stages to practical applications, benefiting the nation,” said QSA Director and Berkeley Lab scientist Bert de Jong.

Startup Valar Atomics said on Monday that it achieved criticality—an essential nuclear milestone—with the help of one of the country’s top nuclear laboratories. The El Segundo, California-based startup, which last week announced it had secured a $130 million funding round with backing from Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar, claims that it is the first nuclear startup to create a critical fission reaction.

It’s also, more specifically, the first company in a special Department of Energy pilot program aiming to get at least three startups to criticality by July 4 of next year to announce it had achieved this reaction. The pilot program, which was formed following an executive order president Donald Trump signed in May, has upended US regulation of nuclear startups, allowing companies to reach new milestones like criticality at a rapid pace.

“Zero power criticality is a reactor’s first heartbeat, proof the physics holds,” Valar founder Isaiah Taylor said in a statement. “This moment marks the dawn of a new era in American nuclear engineering, one defined by speed, scale, and private-sector execution with closer federal partnership.”

Criticality is the term used for when a nuclear reactor is sustaining a chain reaction—the first step in providing power. Enriched nuclear fuel releases neutrons, which hit other atoms, which then split apart; neutrons from that process then hit other atoms, and start the reaction over. This process is known as fission. A properly-functioning reactor has just enough reactions to keep that fission chain going, reaching a state of criticality.

“Think of a long chain of dominoes,” says Adam Stein, the director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation program at the Breakthrough Institute, an eco-modernist policy center. “If you have those dominoes spaced out too far, a domino won’t hit the next one. If they’re spaced just right, then one hits the next, hits the next, and you have the reaction you’re hoping for.”

There’s a difference between the type of criticality Valar reached this week—what’s known as cold criticality or zero-power criticality—and what’s needed to actually create nuclear power. Nuclear reactors use heat to create power, but in cold criticality, which is used to test a reactor’s design and physics, the reaction isn’t strong enough to create enough heat to make power.

The reactor that reached criticality this week is not actually Valar’s own model, but rather a blend of the startup’s fuel and technology with key structural components provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the DOE’s research and development laboratories. The combination reactor builds off a separate fuel test performed last year at the laboratory, using fuel similar to that Valar’s reactor will use.

Federal Reserve officials face a challenge resolving differences over how to set interest rates with little new economic data to guide tricky judgment calls.

Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson offered a case study in the central bank’s predicament on Monday, acknowledging the risk of stubborn inflation and weaker employment conditions—dueling threats that call for opposing prescriptions.

“The evolving balance of risks underscores the need to proceed slowly” with rate cuts, Jefferson said during a talk at the Kansas City Fed.

Beyond that observation, Jefferson’s comments did little to build the case either for a long timeout on rate cuts or for a rate cut at next month’s meeting—a decision that is shaping up to be unusually contentious.

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin is in free fall — and traders are positioning for more pain.

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The world’s largest cryptocurrency plunged below $91,500 Monday, deepening a selloff that’s erased all of its gains for the year. In the options market, traders are making increasingly bearish wagers, on the conviction that the slide is far from over as deep-pocketed buyers beat a retreat.

The shift in sentiment has been swift and sharp. Demand for downside protection — particularly at the $90,000, $85,000 and $80,000 levels — has surged. Protective options expiring later this month are seeing especially heavy activity, according to data from Coinbase-owned Deribit.

After riding Bitcoin to the highs just weeks ago, traders have snapped up more than $740 million worth of contracts betting on continued declines expiring in late November — far outpacing interest in bullish positions.

“The absence of conviction-based spot demand has become increasingly apparent as buyers who accumulated positions over the last six months now find themselves significantly underwater,” said Chris Newhouse, director of research at Ergonia, a firm specializing in decentralized finance.

The pain has been concentrated in companies known as digital-asset treasuries — firms that stockpiled large amounts of cryptocurrencies earlier this year in an effort to become crypto-hoarding bets in the stock market. While Michael Saylor’s Strategy Inc. just bought another $835 million worth of Bitcoin, some of his corporate peers are facing growing pressure to sell assets to protect their balance sheets.

That selling has created a psychological overhang: A market crowded with investors who are too deep in the red to buy more, but not yet ready to cut their losses.

A sentiment index compiled by data-analytics platform CoinMarketCap — tracking price momentum, volatility, derivatives, and more — indicates crypto participants are mired in a state of “extreme fear.”

Larger economic forces are weighing on sentiment, too. Traders are eyeing Wednesday’s earnings from Nvidia Corp. — a bellwether for tech and speculative risk — as well as shifting expectations for a possible interest-rate cut from the Federal Reserve in December. The S&P 500 fell more than 1%, hitting sentiment for risk assets of all stripes.

“I think the Fed and AI bubble talk are two major headwinds for crypto and risk assets heading into the end of the year,” said Adam McCarthy, a research analyst at Kaiko. “The AI risk is likely compounding and affecting risk sentiment in crypto, adding that to the chatter from FOMC officials, you’re looking at a sustained downtrend for Bitcoin.”

Ethereum’s token, Ether, is proving especially vulnerable. The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency slumped to $2,975, bringing its decline to 24% since early October.

“Ether is very vulnerable to this theme as the biggest digital asset treasury firms are currently underwater on their positions,” said Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at Amberdata.

The broader market has been reeling since a sharp liquidation wave in early October erased about $19 billion in digital assets. Open interest in crypto futures contracts has dropped, particularly in smaller tokens like Solana, where positioning has fallen by more than half, according to Coinglass data.

“That riskoff tone spills into crypto markets, where sentiment remains fragile — the latest drawdown reflects broader macro jitters rather than structural flaws,” said Thomas Perfumo, global economist at crypto exchange Kraken.

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