Daily Update - June 24th, 2026
Cerebras, AI token shock, SK Hynix lists ADR, and some bits and bobs.
Cerebras disappoints, token usage shock causes people to cut spending, SK hynix files an ADR, Samsung released NAND for mobile AI devices. I’m heading out of London amid the heat wave today, and Austin is in New York attending Qualcomm investor day today. Surely we will discuss his observations on the podcast.
Here are our quick briefing of the news — Austin & Vik
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Cerebras 2026 Sales Forecast Disappoints AI Market Expectations
Cerebras projects 2026 revenue between $855 million and $865 million, exceeding analysts’ average estimate of $824.8 million. Despite this, shares fell approximately 10% in late trading as investors anticipated a larger market share in AI data centers. The company reported first-quarter sales of $193.4 million, a 94% increase, with a net loss of $14 million. (bloomberg.com)
Vik: Investors have high expectations from semiconductors these days. Just exceeding analyst estimates seems to disappoint everybody. Nevertheless, there are issues with Cerebras at scale, and I’ve written about it. In any case, I think my tweet below sums up some of it.
Irrational Analysis posts his observations from the earnings call transcript.
AI Customers Cut Bills, Shift to Cheaper Models
Large AI customers are reducing spending on Anthropic and OpenAI by using less expensive models, including open-source options. Ensemble Health Partners expects to save nearly $700,000 annually by switching to a lower-cost OpenAI model. Open-source model usage surged to 65% of OpenRouter tokens processed in June, up from 34% in January. (theinformation.com)
Vik: If this report is true, then we can expect the crazy ARR growth of Anthropic to slow down, and see inference shift more to open source models where cost per unit intelligence is much more aligned to actually be useful. Frontier models are not needed for everything. Several chip design folks I know say Claude Sonnet does the job well enough. No need for Opus. That tells you something. Watch closely.
Austin: Although a few folks have “reduced” current spend on frontier, I tend to think frontier continues to grow in aggregate for frontier tasks, especially agentic coding. But open-source (+fine-tuning) will grow a ton too as companies deploy LLM- and need to keep an eye on costs.
SK Hynix files $29B US ADR listing
SK Hynix said it will raise up to $29 billion through a US listing of American depositary receipts (ADR), with proceeds earmarked for AI-related investment. This filing would rank among the largest ADR offerings by an Asian issuer, and is expected on July 10th. (Bloomberg Tech)
Vik: This makes it easier for US investors to get in on the SK Hynix action, although retail investors have probably been buy in via Interactive Brokers or similar.
Samsung unveils first UFS 5.0 mobile storage
Samsung Electronics announced on June 23 the development of the industry’s first Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 5.0 product family, designed for on-device artificial intelligence workloads in smartphones and other mobile devices. The new lineup adopts the latest UFS 5.0 standard, which Samsung said is optimized to handle AI processing directly on devices rather than routing requests to the cloud. The South Korean memory maker did not disclose pricing, capacity tiers, or commercial availability for the new product family in its initial announcement. (The Elec)
Vik: NAND is important for AI now, and KV cache storage becomes an issue with just DRAM-based memory. Even on edge devices will require a different class of NAND storage that is suited to AI applications.
LG Chem commits $11B to chip, robotics materials
LG Chem plans to invest 15 trillion won (roughly $11 billion) in research and development through 2035, shifting its focus from conventional petrochemicals toward higher-margin materials for semiconductors, mobility and robotics. President Kim Dong-chun announced the plan at a town hall meeting, framing it as part of the South Korean company’s transformation into a high-value-added materials supplier. The Elec reported the commitment, which spans the next decade of R&D spending. (The Elec)
Vik: Signs of long term investments are a good sign but people from all industries have some kind of AI angle these days which makes supply chain research SO MUCH more interesting!
Key Data
A nice chart from TrendForce.
Quick Hits
YEST is expected to see earnings growth as high-pressure hydrogen annealing equipment is considered for next-generation 1d-nanometer DRAM production. (The Elec)
NVIDIA and AWS collaborate to bring AI to production at scale, addressing low-latency inference, vector search and GPU price-performance for enterprise workloads. (Nvidia News)
Penguin Solutions becomes an NVIDIA AI Factory Specialized Partner, joining the program for delivering full-stack AI infrastructure to enterprise customers. (Penguin Solutions)
Ciena’s Blue Planet and Telefónica Deutschland demonstrate how AI agents can accelerate 5G network slicing service design across operator infrastructure. (Ciena)
Kioxia executive pay jumps sharply after AI-driven demand boosted NAND flash sales and the company’s stock price following its Tokyo listing. (Bloomberg.com)
Drat! You’re in London today and I’m there tomorrow!