The Age of Inference: Etched Startup Proves the Next AI Hotspot

Inference is becoming more important than pre-training in AI chips, including how pre-fill and decode work and why more compute is shifting toward serving models. Today we walk through Etched’s ASIC system for transformer inference, its claims around efficiency and throughput, and the tradeoff between specialization and general-purpose GPUs like NVIDIA’s. We also look at custom chip efforts from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Amazon, and argues that inference demand may keep growing as AI agents and long-running workloads expand.------🌌 LIMITLESS HQ ⬇️EMAIL US:           [email protected]:    https://limitlessft.substack.com/FOLLOW ON X:   https://x.com/LimitlessFTSPOTIFY:              https://open.spotify.com/show/5oV29YUL8AzzwXkxEXlRMQAPPLE:                 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/limitless-podcast/id1813210890RSS FEED:           https://limitlessft.substack.com/------TIMESTAMPS0:00 Inference’s New Frontier2:14 Training Versus Inference5:19 Etched’s Bold Bet7:58 Building the Whole Rack10:48 TSMC and the Hard Problems13:29 Why Inference Matters14:59 The Transformer Risk17:02 OpenAI’s Jalapeno Chip18:59 Why Accelerators Keep Winning22:28 The Market Is Underpricing It23:10 NVIDIA Is Still in the Game24:56 Vertical Integration Wins------RESOURCESJosh: https://x.com/JoshKaleEjaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213------Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠Josh works with Anthropic as a contractor. All views expressed are his own and do not represent Anthropic, its leadership, or its affiliates. Nothing in this episode is investment advice.