hardware

Zhongqi Wuliang showed Qinghe No. 1, a neutral-atom quantum computer built to fit a standard data-center rack, at WAIC 2026 in Shanghai.

Valve's cube-shaped SteamOS console shipped June 30 in four configurations from $1,049, sold through a randomized reservation lottery, with the company blaming an AI-driven memory shortage for a price far above its original target.

At the Ubuntu Summit, SpacemiT showed its 16-core Key Stone K3 running Ubuntu responsively, with a Banana Pi board priced at roughly twice a Raspberry Pi 5.

At Build 2026, Microsoft revealed Project Solara, a chip-to-cloud platform built on AOSP for devices that run AI agents instead of apps, including a reference-design wearable badge.

The AI startup founded by Figure AI's CEO closed an oversubscribed round led by Parkway Venture Capital, with Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm among the backers.

Dutch quantum chip firm QuantWare closes a record $178M Series B to scale its VIO processor platform and open KiloFab, the world's largest dedicated quantum foundry.

NVIDIA VP Ian Buck personally delivered the first production Vera CPU systems to Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and Oracle in California, marking the commercial arrival of NVIDIA's first purpose-built agentic AI processor.

Nearly 45,000 Samsung workers plan an 18-day walkout from May 21 after talks collapsed over the 50% bonus cap and a 15% operating-profit share, putting HBM4 supply at risk.

Apple has permanently retired the Mac Pro tower with no successor planned, closing a 20-year chapter in professional computing as the Mac Studio becomes its flagship desktop.

Valve's cube-shaped SteamOS console faces component shortages that have already shifted the release window twice, but the company insists all three new hardware products will ship this year.

Nominal, an Austin-based hardware data platform, reached a $1 billion valuation after raising an $80 million Series B extension led by Founders Fund, bringing total funding to $155 million in under ten months.

Apple's MacBook Pro refreshed with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips offers up to 128GB unified memory, Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7, and claimed 4x AI gains over the previous generation, shipping March 11.