Asking rental rates for data centers continue to climb, rising 6.5% in H1 to more than $174 per kw/month, following an 18.6% rise last year and a 14.6% rise in 2022. $NVDA $MSFT $GOOG $META $AMZN $VRT

Google $GOOG is considering building its first hyperscale data center in Vietnam, with reports suggesting the data center could be operational as soon as 2027. $MSFT $AMZN $NVDA $AVGO

Apple $AAPL is reportedly expecting Apple Intelligence to boost iPhone demand this year, with reports saying the tech giant has informed suppliers to ship components for 88-90M iPhones, or 10% more than the 80M units in component orders last year.

AI chip startup Cerebras last week launched Inference, which it claims runs inference 20x faster than Nvidia’s $NVDA GPUs, delivering outputs of ~1,800 tokens per second on Meta’s $META Llama 3.1 8B and ~450 tokens per second on Llama 3.1 70B. $AMD $AMZN $MSFT $GOOG

Qualcomm $QCOM unveiled its Snapdragon X Plus 8-core AI PC chip, targeting devices that cost as low as $700 with the new chip as competition against Intel $INTC and AMD $AMD heats up.

Nvidia $NVDA reportedly commanded 92% market share in AI data center GPUs in the first part 2024.

Demand for AI infrastructure remains “relentless”, according to CoreWeave’s CEO, as hyperscaler capacity continues to lag demand. $NVDA $AMD $AVGO $GOOG $MSFT $AMZN $META

What a difference 24 hours can make!

Foxconn recently forecasted AI servers to be its next trillion TWD revenue product. $NVDA $AMD $DELL $SMCI

Chinese firms are reportedly snapping up Nvidia’s $NVDA lower priced H20 GPUs tailored to meet export restrictions, with analysts estimating Nvidia to ship more than 1 million to 1.2 million of these GPUs this year. $BABA $BIDU $TSM

OpenAI and Anthropic recently signed deals to research, test and evaluate their AI models with the US government, amid rising scrutiny of AI safety and ethics. $MSFT $GOOG $AMZN $NVDA $META

The Dutch government is reportedly preparing to ban ASML $ASML from renewing licenses to service and provide spare parts to advanced chipmaking machinery in China, which could hinder China’s ability to produce 7nm and 5mn chips next year. $KLAC $LRCX $AMAT

Prediction: Microsoft Azure will reach a $200B run rate by 2027. I detail how $MSFT can get there in my newsletter tomorrow -- link in bio. $AMZN $GOOG $NVDA

"GPUs are becoming more important than engineers" -Hock Tan on $AVGO earnings call, discussing $NVDA and $AMD

July imports from the Netherlands topped $2 billion as firms increasingly procure equipment from ASML $ASML. $KLAC $LRCX $AMAT

Applied Materials $AMAT CEO Gary Dickerson: "In our discussions with leading AI companies, they are telling us that reducing power-per-operation is now more important than increasing operations-per-second. They are also talking about the need to drive a 10,000 times improvement

Nvidia $NVDA partner SMC claims that its HyperCubes, its containerized GPU solution featuring its polyalphaolefin-based immersion cooling tech, reduce energy consumption by 50% while being 28% cheaper to install.

Japanese chipmaker Kioxia has filed for an IPO, potentially in October, in what would mark Japan’s largest public offering this year. Kioxia is likely to be valued around 1.5 trillion yen, or $10.3 billion. $WDC $MU

Microsoft $MSFT recently updated its Azure growth metrics, with AI now contributing 11 points to growth of 34% YoY (35% constant currency), compared to 8 points contribution on 29% growth as previously reported. $AMZN $GOOG $NVDA

Breaking: Palantir $PLTR and Dell $DELL are joining the S&P 500.