EP 181: Cerebras Earnings, QCOM Investor Day, Micron Earnings and the Memory Mafia

The tech industry faces a shifting landscape as companies navigate the high-stakes demands of AI infrastructure and memory supply. Cerebras’ initial public earnings highlight the complexities of scaling wafer-scale engines, where high demand for fast inference clashes with margin pressures and unique architectural costs. Meanwhile, Qualcomm’s aggressive pivot toward data center revenue—targeting $15 billion by fiscal 2029—relies on custom ARM-based CPUs and ASIC design services, though success hinges on overcoming significant software integration hurdles. Simultaneously, the memory market exhibits extreme volatility, with Micron reporting massive price surges and long-term contracts that signal a departure from historical cyclical norms. These dynamics reflect a broader, high-stakes competition among memory giants, where capacity hoarding and strategic supply chain maneuvering define the current power struggle for dominance in the AI-driven semiconductor era.