News linked to both this project and an event.
data center operator Core Scientific disclosed in its second-quarter regulatory filing that it paid $41.9 million to terminate the Bitcoin mining machine contract with Block and its Proto division, with related losses amounting to $41.9 million. Both the agreement and future equipment deliveries have been canceled. The agreement, announced in July 2024, originally called for Proto to supply 3nm mining chips, corresponding to approximately 15 EH/s in hashrate, and included options for additional purchases. Core Scientific stated that it will no longer invest in new mining machines to maintain or expand hashrate, will generate cash flow from existing mining machines, and will sell or retire machines as appropriate. Core Scientific's second-quarter hosting revenue increased from $10.6 million in the same period last year to $137 million, accounting for 83% of total revenue; self-mining revenue fell 66% year-over-year to $21.5 million, representing 13% of total revenue. The company stated that quarterly Bitcoin production decreased by 53% year-over-year, and it continues to shift power from mining equipment to high-density computing systems such as GPUs.
Odaily, July 21 - Microsoft and French AI startup Mistral AI announced an expansion of their strategic partnership on July 21, signing a multi-billion dollar agreement centered on European AI infrastructure to enhance AI computing capabilities in the region. Under the agreement, Microsoft will leverage Mistral's expanded European GPU infrastructure to support its cloud computing and AI services. This infrastructure will be based on thousands of Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs.In terms of products, the Mistral Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 models are now available on the Microsoft Foundry platform, and Mistral Medium 3.5 has also been integrated into Microsoft Copilot Studio for agent applications, document processing workflows, and industry-customized workflows. Additionally, the two parties will expand AI deployment options through Azure and Azure Local, supporting cloud, cloud-connected, and fully offline environments, targeting industries with high data compliance requirements such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.
According to The Block, Bernstein stated that before the compliant computing power futures planned by CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange are approved, AI computing power derivatives adopting crypto market mechanisms have already launched. Currently, Architect's offshore trading platform AX has launched GPU perpetual futures, while Kalshi has listed GPU rental price event contracts regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Odaily News Alex Svanevik, CEO of on-chain analytics platform Nansen, stated that when enterprises begin effectively using Chinese large language models, the bubble in the AI industry may burst. While the U.S. regulatory environment could limit this process, the overall trend remains that Chinese models are continuously becoming more efficient, capable of running on non-cutting-edge hardware, while global GPU supply (including non-Nvidia chips) is increasing.Alex Svanevik also pointed out that the recent decline in H100 and H200 GPU rental prices reflects a shift in the supply-demand structure of computing power. He raised the question of how to interpret the market signal of declining GPU rental prices. As model efficiency improves alongside expanding computing power supply, the AI infrastructure market may be entering a phase of repricing.
sources say NVIDIA has begun pitching its first independent central processing unit (CPU) product, Vera, to Chinese clients. Designed specifically for Agentic AI systems, the chip has entered mass production, marking NVIDIA's attempt to further expand its presence in the Chinese market with a CPU offering.According to sources, some Chinese clients have already shown interest in Vera. One major Chinese cloud computing company plans to procure over 300 servers equipped with dual Vera CPUs for testing, and will decide whether to expand procurement after the tests are completed.Built on the Arm Holdings architecture, Vera is NVIDIA's first independent CPU product. NVIDIA has previously stated that Vera's performance in AI agent-related computing tasks is 1.8 times that of comparable competitor products, and expects the product to contribute approximately $20 billion in revenue by the end of this fiscal year (ending January next year).The report notes that as the AI industry's focus gradually shifts from model training to inference computing, CPUs and custom chips are gaining more attention. Vera also positions NVIDIA to directly compete with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which have long dominated the server CPU market.Sources indicate that due to strict U.S. export restrictions on high-end GPUs, CPUs face relatively smaller regulatory hurdles in the Chinese market compared to GPU products. Currently, some Chinese clients plan to first deploy Vera chips for testing in overseas data centers. Meanwhile, software ecosystem compatibility and existing domestic AI chip deployment frameworks may still impact the subsequent large-scale adoption of Vera. (Reuters)
Nasdaq-listed Alpha Compute has announced the completion of its acquisition of a majority stake in GAMEE, a gaming and digital rewards platform, securing a 60% controlling interest. The transaction has now met all regulatory and closing conditions.According to the agreement, Alpha Compute acquired GAMEE from Animoca Brands for a consideration of approximately $11 million, implying an enterprise valuation of roughly $18 million. The transaction structure includes cash, stock, and future performance-based earnouts, along with an EBITDA milestone incentive clause over two years. Additionally, approximately 878 million GMEE tokens associated with Animoca are also included in the transaction arrangement.Following the transaction, Alpha Compute will establish a new AI gaming division named Alpha Games, with GAMEE founder Bozena Rezab serving as Executive Vice President. GAMEE will be integrated into Alpha Compute's AI infrastructure system, working in synergy with its GPU computing platform.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced plans to launch futures contracts with "computing power" as the underlying asset, designed to track cost changes for GPUs and other computing resources supporting the AI industry. The product still requires regulatory approval. According to reports, ICE will collaborate with financial infrastructure company Ornn to develop a related derivatives pricing system based on its GPU Cost Index. This index will be used to underpin computing power futures contracts. (Bloomberg)
AethirClaw has officially launched CARA (Pre-configured Crypto AI Agent), running on Aethir's decentralized GPU infrastructure. Equipped with over 50 skills, it covers core crypto scenarios such as real-time market monitoring, whale wallet tracking, on-chain analysis, social media sentiment monitoring, and project due diligence, and users can use it out-of-the-box without any technical configuration.The platform supports payments via credit card as well as USDT, USDC, and ATH tokens. Aethir also disclosed that it will soon launch a Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) layer, running mainstream open-source large models on Aethir's decentralized GPU infrastructure, and expand multimodal capabilities including text-to-image and video generation.
According to the Ethereum Foundation’s official website, its Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) allocated a total of $9.856 million in Q1 2026, with funding concentrated on core infrastructure areas including cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, security audits, and protocol research. Key funded projects this quarter include: - In the ZK domain: formal verification of zkVMs, GPU-accelerated R1CS witness generation, and intermediate representation optimization for LLZK; - In security: cryptanalysis of Poseidon, cross-platform canonical signing libraries for ERC-7730, and specification-compliance testing for ePBS; - In node and client development: Erigon zkEVM extensions, Besu HSM compliance integration, and the multi-node validator Vero; - Additionally, privacy tools (Kohaku SDK, Tor bridge extensions), continued operations of the Layer 2 transparency platform L2BEAT, and R&D for the Lighthouse client’s transition to the Fusaka fork. On ecosystem development, ESP simultaneously supported Ethereum developer events in Seoul, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Buenos Aires, advanced updates to the Ethereum climate impact assessment, and backed policy research initiatives by the European Decentralization Institute (EDI).
Decentralized GPU cloud computing infrastructure platform Aethir confirmed that its Ethereum-related bridge contract was attacked. The team promptly disconnected the affected contract and, in collaboration with major exchanges, blacklisted the hacker’s wallet, limiting losses to under $90,000. Earlier, blockchain security firm PeckShield estimated losses at $400,000. The attacker exploited Aethir’s cross-chain smart contract, AethirOFTAdapter, to transfer stolen funds from BNB Chain to Tron. Aethir stated that its Ethereum mainnet ATH token supply remains unaffected. It plans to release a detailed compensation plan and incident analysis next week and will collaborate with exchanges including Binance, Upbit, and Bithumb to freeze funds. Web3 security platform ZeroShadow is assisting with the investigation. In 2025, Aethir achieved $127.8 million in revenue and deployed over 440,000 GPU containers globally.