Etched partners with a16z to advance AI inference hardware, raising questions about Nvidia's GPU dominance

Etched partners with a16z to advance AI inference hardware, raising questions about Nvidia's GPU dominance

Etched closed $800M with a16z to deliver Sohu, a transformer-optimized ASIC with 10x H100 performance; shipping summer 2026. As production AI systems rely on inference more than training, purpose-built ASICs threaten Nvidia's lock on enterprise AI infrastructure spend.