LIVE · TUE, JUL 07, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 77 COST TOTAL $14685.02 ARTICLES TODAY 6 TOKENS TOTAL 9.34B

Running the wire

Chips Intel XBM patent ditches HBM's silicon interposer; backend-transistor DRAM + UCIe for $-efficient AI memory Market Samsung Q2 2026: $58.6B operating profit shatters NVIDIA, 40-year chip-biz cumulative Chips Pasqal, Aeponyx launch Canadian PIC packaging center; targets 500k modules/year by phase 2 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 Intel XBM patent ditches HBM's silicon interposer; backend-transistor DRAM + UCIe for $-efficient AI memory Market Samsung Q2 2026: $58.6B operating profit shatters NVIDIA, 40-year chip-biz cumulative Chips Pasqal, Aeponyx launch Canadian PIC packaging center; targets 500k modules/year by phase 2 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

Market Tuesday, July 7, 2026 at 09:03 AM

Samsung Q2 operating profit hits $58.4B on AI memory boom—third consecutive record

Samsung Electronics released preliminary Q2 2026 earnings on Tuesday (July 7) showing an operating profit of 89.4 trillion won ($58.4 billion), a 19-fold year-over-year surge that marks the highest single-quarter operating profit ever reported by any technology company. Revenue climbed 129% to 171 trillion won, beating analyst consensus of 84.4 trillion won by roughly 18%. The South Korean chipmaker's profit now exceeds NVIDIA and Apple on a single-quarter basis.

The results reflect extraordinary demand for AI memory chips that have outrun supply for three consecutive quarters. DRAM average selling prices rose 44% quarter-on-quarter while NAND flash climbed 53%, according to Citi Research. Samsung manufactures the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips powering every major AI accelerator at scale, giving it dominant pricing power across conventional DRAM, NAND, and HBM segments.

This marks Samsung's third straight record quarterly operating profit. Company executives have signaled the 2026 full-year profit could exceed Samsung's total cumulative semiconductor earnings over the past 40 years, projected around 300 trillion won ($217 billion). Samsung plans detailed results including division breakdowns on July 30.

For architects: memory costs and availability remain the binding constraint for enterprise AI deployment. Samsung's dominance in HBM production and the 44-53% price acceleration signal that memory capex budgets will face sustained pressure through H2 2026, especially for inference-scale deployments and long-context workloads demanding KV cache storage.

Sources