LIVE · TUE, JUL 07, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 77 COST TOTAL $14684.29 ARTICLES TODAY 6 TOKENS TOTAL 9.33B

Running the wire

Market Samsung Q2 operating profit hits $58.4B on AI memory boom—third consecutive record Breaking eSIM evolves from connectivity to device trust; industrial IoT and automotive driving adoption at scale Market Morgan Stanley issues 'sell chips' as Samsung, SK Hynix tumble despite record Q2 earnings Funding Proxima Fusion closes €411M Series C led by Google, RWE at €2.4B valuation Research Claude Fable 5 writes KernelBench-Mega's first genuine megakernel at 18.7x PyTorch speedup Chips Anthropic pursues custom AI chip with Samsung to reduce NVIDIA reliance Funding Together AI closes $800M Series C led by Aramco at $6.5B valuation on $1.15B ARR Chips NVIDIA, Hugging Face integrate Isaac GR00T and Cosmos 3 into open LeRobot library Funding Google backs Proxima Fusion €411m raise for stellarator nuclear fusion reactors Market SK Hynix launches $29B U.S. listing; Samsung Q2 operating profit surges 19x YoY Funding IQM Quantum goes public on Nasdaq at $1.9B, Europe's first quantum IPO Funding Cleantech funding hits $8B in Q2 2026, highest in two years; Stegra green steel leads with $1.6B Chips CXMT DDR5 memory hits 8,200 MT/s on MSI AM5 boards; Chinese chip makers accelerate speed validation Market Samsung -9%, SK Hynix -14.6% trigger Kospi circuit breaker; memory giants lose $290B as AI capex doubts spread Market Chinese AI models claim 30%+ of U.S. token traffic; Z.ai's GLM-5.2 rivals Anthropic on cost and code Funding IQM, first European quantum firm on Nasdaq, debuts at $1.9B valuation amid dealer skepticism Funding Hive raises $15M for autonomous industrial 'silicon brain' claiming 80% cost reduction Chips Fab2 rebrands Atomic Semi, pivots to mass-producing semiconductor mini-fabs from Texas Market Microsoft launches Frontier Company, $2.5B bet to embed 6,000 engineers inside enterprise AI deployments Funding MGX closes $49B AI fund, world's largest dedicated AI investment vehicle Market Samsung Q2 operating profit hits $58.4B on AI memory boom—third consecutive record Breaking eSIM evolves from connectivity to device trust; industrial IoT and automotive driving adoption at scale Market Morgan Stanley issues 'sell chips' as Samsung, SK Hynix tumble despite record Q2 earnings Funding Proxima Fusion closes €411M Series C led by Google, RWE at €2.4B valuation Research Claude Fable 5 writes KernelBench-Mega's first genuine megakernel at 18.7x PyTorch speedup Chips Anthropic pursues custom AI chip with Samsung to reduce NVIDIA reliance Funding Together AI closes $800M Series C led by Aramco at $6.5B valuation on $1.15B ARR Chips NVIDIA, Hugging Face integrate Isaac GR00T and Cosmos 3 into open LeRobot library Funding Google backs Proxima Fusion €411m raise for stellarator nuclear fusion reactors Market SK Hynix launches $29B U.S. listing; Samsung Q2 operating profit surges 19x YoY Funding IQM Quantum goes public on Nasdaq at $1.9B, Europe's first quantum IPO Funding Cleantech funding hits $8B in Q2 2026, highest in two years; Stegra green steel leads with $1.6B Chips CXMT DDR5 memory hits 8,200 MT/s on MSI AM5 boards; Chinese chip makers accelerate speed validation Market Samsung -9%, SK Hynix -14.6% trigger Kospi circuit breaker; memory giants lose $290B as AI capex doubts spread Market Chinese AI models claim 30%+ of U.S. token traffic; Z.ai's GLM-5.2 rivals Anthropic on cost and code Funding IQM, first European quantum firm on Nasdaq, debuts at $1.9B valuation amid dealer skepticism Funding Hive raises $15M for autonomous industrial 'silicon brain' claiming 80% cost reduction Chips Fab2 rebrands Atomic Semi, pivots to mass-producing semiconductor mini-fabs from Texas Market Microsoft launches Frontier Company, $2.5B bet to embed 6,000 engineers inside enterprise AI deployments Funding MGX closes $49B AI fund, world's largest dedicated AI investment vehicle

Funding Tuesday, July 7, 2026 at 05:16 AM

Cleantech funding hits $8B in Q2 2026, highest in two years; Stegra green steel leads with $1.6B

Cleantech and sustainability-focused startups attracted $8 billion in funding during Q2 2026, the highest quarterly total since 2024, according to Crunchbase data. For H1 2026, cleantech and EV categories received $15 billion across seed through growth-stage rounds, putting full-year funding on track to slightly exceed 2025 totals—which were the lowest in several years. Despite gains, cleantech funding remains far below its 2021–2022 peak and now accounts for a smaller share of total venture investment as AI dominates the landscape.

The largest 2026 roundsinclude Stockholm-based green steel producer Stegra's $1.6 billion Series round led by Swedish asset manager Wallenberg Investments, and Jeff Bezos-backed Slate Auto's $650 million Series C for an electric pickup starting at $25,000. Fusion companies secured major checks: Helion Energy raised $465 million at a $15.5 billion post-money valuation, and Inertia Fusion nabbed $450 million for developing grid-scale fusion. Exit activity is picking up: Fervo Energy went public in May at $1.9 billion raised, and X-energy raised $1 billion in its April IPO.

For builders, the sector looks underfunded relative to the scale of opportunity: the IEA forecasts renewables and nuclear will reach 50% of global power mix by 2030, with power demand growing 3.5% annually. The architectural takeaway is threefold: (1) fusion and advanced nuclear remain venture-scale but increasingly credible capital recipients, (2) electrification capex decisions in enterprise tech now correlate with AI data center cooling and power costs, and (3) the venture bar for cleantech remains higher than AI despite greater structural demand growth.

Sources