LIVE · WED, JUL 29, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 99 COST TOTAL $14994.86 ARTICLES TODAY 12 TOKENS TOTAL 9.72B

Running the wire

Chips LPDDR and SOCAMM memory gain traction in AI data centers as HBM supply tightens Policy Sam Altman meets White House chief of staff as Trump AI framework deadline looms Aug. 1 Breaking LangChain Deep Agents v0.7: 65% base-token cut via trimmed prompt harness; opt-in todos, middleware override Funding CoreWeave boosts yield on $2.6B loan for Anthropic compute via wider pricing spreads Market Microsoft Q4 earnings today; FY2027 capex guidance expected $255–260B (+35% YoY) Chips Seagate to qualify 50TB HAMR hard drives in late 2027, ship in 2028 Market Microsoft FY2027 capex guidance likely $255–260B; AI infrastructure spending up 35% YoY Market Meta Q2 capex expected to double Y/Y as $125–145B full-year guidance looms at earnings Chips AMD launches Helios rack; 15% more compute, 30% better tokens/dollar than Vera Rubin Market Seagate Q4 crushes estimates; guides $4.1B Q1 revenue on AI storage demand Market NVIDIA raises RTX GPU prices 20–30% in third hike of 2026; GDDR shortage expected to persist until 2028 Chips NVIDIA employee detained in Taiwan over Supermicro smuggling scheme; GPU export diversion persists despite whitelist Market Apple hits $5T valuation; Tim Cook's final earnings call faces memory crisis + AI strategy pressure Chips Lenovo doubles Whitsett NC AI server facility to 890K sq ft; targets 1,400 nodes/day capacity Market Meta partners BlackRock on $14B El Paso data center; BlackRock owns 80%, Meta operates Market Bloom Energy crushes Q2, raises FY guidance to $3.9–4.2B on AI data center fuel cell demand Funding Centralize raises $15M Series A to map enterprise deal relationships with AI Market Asian semiconductor stocks plunge; SK Hynix misses estimates despite record profit Policy xAI sues Minnesota over AI nudification ban; law takes effect Aug 1 Policy Judge approves Anthropic $1.5B copyright settlement; authors get ~$3,100 per work Chips LPDDR and SOCAMM memory gain traction in AI data centers as HBM supply tightens Policy Sam Altman meets White House chief of staff as Trump AI framework deadline looms Aug. 1 Breaking LangChain Deep Agents v0.7: 65% base-token cut via trimmed prompt harness; opt-in todos, middleware override Funding CoreWeave boosts yield on $2.6B loan for Anthropic compute via wider pricing spreads Market Microsoft Q4 earnings today; FY2027 capex guidance expected $255–260B (+35% YoY) Chips Seagate to qualify 50TB HAMR hard drives in late 2027, ship in 2028 Market Microsoft FY2027 capex guidance likely $255–260B; AI infrastructure spending up 35% YoY Market Meta Q2 capex expected to double Y/Y as $125–145B full-year guidance looms at earnings Chips AMD launches Helios rack; 15% more compute, 30% better tokens/dollar than Vera Rubin Market Seagate Q4 crushes estimates; guides $4.1B Q1 revenue on AI storage demand Market NVIDIA raises RTX GPU prices 20–30% in third hike of 2026; GDDR shortage expected to persist until 2028 Chips NVIDIA employee detained in Taiwan over Supermicro smuggling scheme; GPU export diversion persists despite whitelist Market Apple hits $5T valuation; Tim Cook's final earnings call faces memory crisis + AI strategy pressure Chips Lenovo doubles Whitsett NC AI server facility to 890K sq ft; targets 1,400 nodes/day capacity Market Meta partners BlackRock on $14B El Paso data center; BlackRock owns 80%, Meta operates Market Bloom Energy crushes Q2, raises FY guidance to $3.9–4.2B on AI data center fuel cell demand Funding Centralize raises $15M Series A to map enterprise deal relationships with AI Market Asian semiconductor stocks plunge; SK Hynix misses estimates despite record profit Policy xAI sues Minnesota over AI nudification ban; law takes effect Aug 1 Policy Judge approves Anthropic $1.5B copyright settlement; authors get ~$3,100 per work

Chips Wednesday, July 29, 2026 at 05:02 PM

Seagate to qualify 50TB HAMR hard drives in late 2027, ship in 2028

Seagate announced it will begin customer qualification of its 50TB-class HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) hard drives in late calendar 2027, with shipments to follow in 2028. The company said most of its nearline HDDs are sold out through 2028, with negotiations on 2029 allocations already underway—a stark reversal from the storage slump of 2022–23.

The drives use Seagate's Mozaic 5 platform, which achieves over 5TB per platter, enabling 10-platter HDDs with 50TB+ capacity. This represents a one-year slip from Seagate's original 2026 target, reflecting the difficulty of scaling HAMR technology at commercial volumes. The company already ships Mozaic 4 drives at scale (44TB by 2027) and expects 40% of nearline exabyte shipments to run on HAMR by early 2027, climbing to 70% by mid-2027.

Qualification and volume ramp timelines matter: server OEMs typically need 2–6 months; hyperscale cloud providers, 6–12 months. Seagate has most major cloud service providers qualified on Mozaic drives, and the company is flexible on pricing outside long-term supply agreements (LTAs), signaling price increases ahead for new deals.

The timing aligns with AI infrastructure appetite. Most of Seagate's nearline exabytes are already allocated through 2028 under LTAs, with customers actively seeking extended planning through 2029. For architects, this means HAMR-based capacity in the 50TB class becomes available right as exabyte demand from hyperscalers peaks—but supply constraints will persist through at least 2028.

Sources