Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told employees the company will lay off workers globally following annual performance reviews, with affected staff to be notified starting in November. The memo, reported by Reuters, said the cuts target employees who have consistently underperformed, though it did not disclose which departments or how many jobs would be affected. Qualcomm had about 52,000 employees at the end of its 2025 fiscal year.
Nvidia introduced the DSX Pod AI Factory, a shipping-container-sized unit holding seven Vera Rubin AI racks that weighs about 28,000 kilograms and can be transported by truck. The pods arrive pre-assembled with cabling and liquid cooling, requiring only placement, connection and testing on-site, which Nvidia says cuts data center setup time from six months to 14 days. Manufacturing partners including Foxconn, Gigabyte, Lenovo, HPE, Quanta and Pegatron will build the units, with deliveries starting in early 2027.
Samsung Electronics is reportedly planning to convert its Xian factory to produce 286-layer NAND flash chips by year-end, while SK Hynix aims to upgrade its Dalian plant to make chips with 240 or more layers, according to Reuters sources. Both companies are racing to boost advanced memory output as AI data center demand grows, while fending off rising competition from Chinese manufacturers such as CXMT and YMTC.
Citadel founder Ken Griffin told the Future of Global Markets Conference in New York that companies have been inconsistent at extracting value from AI models despite rising spending. He said investors are 'almost certainly' in an AI bubble, while still expecting AI to create new opportunities and reshape competition. Griffin's comments came as Anthropic prepares to file for a stock market listing and reportedly plans to spend $750 billion on computing power.
Germany's government has amended its 2023 Energy Efficiency Act to drop a requirement that new data centers recycle waste heat into municipal heating systems, replacing it with an obligation merely to study the possibility. The move follows industry complaints, including from the German Data Center Association, that the original rule made building data centers in the country nearly impossible. The amended bill is expected to go before the German parliament for ratification soon.
President Trump posted on Truth Social that data center companies should strike financial deals with nearby communities, including paying dividends to residents or local governments, claiming this has turned unpopular projects into popular ones. The comments follow examples like a Pennsylvania developer's $10,000 household grant offer and Amazon Web Services' pledge of over $1 billion for data center towns over five years.
President Trump posted on Truth Social that data center operators should strike financial deals with communities, including paying residents a 'dividend,' to boost public support for the facilities. He said this approach has turned previously unpopular projects into popular ones in areas he has observed.
NextDC shares dropped 39.5% after the Australian data center operator cut its fiscal 2027 revenue forecast to A$475-500 million from A$615-640 million, and lowered EBITDA guidance to A$245-265 million from A$385-410 million. The company blamed delays in power infrastructure upgrades at its M3 Melbourne facility, where electricity distributor Jemena suspended work due to community opposition and lack of council consent, with resumption not expected before February 2027.
SpaceX reported its first profitable quarter as a company, with revenue climbing 161% year-over-year. The company's AI-related revenue reportedly surged roughly 830%, even as capital spending on data center infrastructure and new technology development continued to rise.
Amazon stock hit an all-time high of $284 on Aug. 3 after a strong earnings report highlighted by CEO Andy Jassy's comments on the long usable life of AWS data center servers and the resulting free cash flow. Since then the shares have fallen more than 7%, even as Morgan Stanley added Amazon to its top picks list and raised its price target from $335 to $350, implying 33% upside from Monday's close.
British data center developer Nscale is renting a vessel called The Kalmar, a three-story barge once used to detain migrants, to house hundreds of contract laborers building its 30-megawatt Glomfjord facility in Norway. The project is at least six months behind schedule after cooling system leaks, an electrical fire, and labor problems, with only 6.4 megawatts currently operational. Bloomberg reported that workers described long shifts with inadequate training and safety protocols, and that a Norwegian labor authority investigation found Nscale's personnel records incomplete, sometimes listing only a worker's first name.
Nscale is negotiating a new agreement with Anthropic worth roughly $45 billion to supply AI computing capacity, according to a source cited by Reuters. The deal would cover a second building at Nscale's Monarch data center campus in West Virginia, providing 460 megawatts of power using Nvidia's upcoming Vera Rubin chips. This follows an earlier $45 billion deal struck in August for the same campus's first facility.
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