Silicon Futures for August 2025: Intel Drama, Trump’s AI Export Tax, MIT NANDA’s AI Progress Report.

Silicon Futures is a neXt Curve reThink Podcast series on AI and semiconductor tech and the industry topics that matter.

In this special August midpoint episode, Leonard, Karl and Jim talk about some of the top headlines of the first couple of weeks of August while we were together at KeyBanc Capital Markets Technology Leadership Summit which took place in Deer Valley, UT.

In this episode, Leonard, Karl and Jim talk about some of the top headlines from April of 2026.

➡️ What’s up with the CPU mania in AI? (2:21)
➡️ Why is everyone going custom, specialized AI systems? (7:30)
➡️ The diverse velocities of AI change & digestion. (9:45)
➡️ The many roles of CPU in an agentic AI system. (12:22)
➡️ Cloud demand driven by AI system complexity and speed. (17:40)
➡️ The AI narrative has graduated from the “chip”. (19:50)
➡️ Is the AI boom sustainable? (23:36)
➡️ Clarifying the Google TPU 8 Enigma. (29:20)
➡️ How will AI system specialization and general purpose play out? (31:53)
➡️ The hyperscale red flag for NVIDIA. (35:44)
➡️ Where are the AI business model transformations? (37: 50)
➡️ A quick thought on Terafab by Intel & Elon. (42:12)
➡️ Impressions on Qualcomm’s custom AI silicon & systems. (43:26)