// TOM'S HARDWARE US — HARDWARE & GADGET
This week on Tom's Hardware Premium: October 10, 2026
As the AI buildout intensifies, so too does the ecosystem around it.
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In case you've been missing out on the action over on Tom's Hardware Premium, we're back with another roundup to fill you in on everything you missed. Central to this week's theme is how Artificial Intelligence and its subsequent buildout are currently impacting all areas of the semiconductor industry.
Headlining this week is our report on how smart software utilization may play a part in the electricity consumption of AI data centers. We sat down and talked with experts in the domain to find out.
Reports state that Tencent has reached a deal to lease high-performance AI chips from Oracle to the tune of $7 billion over five years. While the figure on its surface sounds significant, the estimated lease price is around 43% less than an Nvidia H100 leased at $2.80 per hour on a one-year contract, meaning that Tencent may have scored a slight coup in the terms of its lease agreement. While no specific chips have been named, the size of the deal and the prices point toward a Hopper-class GPU. We explored how this rental loophole may be used by Chinese firms to potentially gain access to otherwise export-controlled hardware.
If you cast your minds back to last week, Synopsys revealed a slew of new agreements and partnerships; one of the most notable among them was an agreement with OpenAI, unveiling a 'GPT-Synopsys' — a specialized AI model that leverages Synopsys' domain IP knowledge and EDA tools, with OpenAI's capability to design LLMs. GPT-Synopsys is, in all likelihood, a chipmaking-specialized AI model, which may play a part in the development of successors to OpenAI's Jalapeño AI ASIC. As we've previously explored, AI models designing chips will likely run into hurdles surrounding IP usage, which become a non-factor if both AI labs and IP holders decide to team up in a manner such as this, setting the stage for chip design's agentic future.
Neon is a noble gas that's widely used in the DUV chipmaking process, with over 70% of global supply being used by the now-older lithography machines. Crude neon production has usually been focused in Ukraine, and ever since the advent of the country's ongoing conflict with Russia, global supply has been disrupted. Now, companies are racing to bring neon gas recycling systems to market in order to make the most of supplies. Japanese lithography toolmaker Gigaphoton and rival Kanten Techno have both developed machines that recycle the material at varying degrees of success. While DUV lithography remains a primary focus for the Chinese chipmaking ecosystem, the material is not widely used in the newer EUV systems that many leading-edge nodes currently utilize.
Qualcomm has reportedly reached a deal with Huawei to license its patents for the first time. While the official announcement is light on detail and subject to approval, an additional report claims that Huawei's LogicFolding chip-stacking methods are also included in the deal, with products ranging across AI, networking, compute, and other technologies. What makes Huawei's LogicFolding approach so notable is that the technique follows and targets faster data transmission as a foil to not having access to the most advanced EUV machines. Additionally, many of the techniques that LogicFolding incorporates echo what others in the chip industry are already doing, which makes it an eyebrow-raising move on Qualcomm's part. Historically, patent licensing between the two companies has been on the other foot — Huawei licensing Qualcomm patents — not the other way around. We explore the deal in detail in our full article.
Two former Groq employees and shareholders have filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Groq's former board and CEO, alleging that the company's board breached its duties and cost stockholders billions, following Groq's $20 billion deal with Nvid