Nvidia wins Modal for new CPUs in push against Intel, AMD

SAN FRANCISCO, California: Nvidia has gained another customer for its new central processors, with fast-growing AI startup Modal planning to use its Vera chips after previously relying entirely on processors from Intel and AMD. The deal provides an early sign of traction for Nvidia's push into a central processor market long controlled by its two rivals. Modal, a cloud-computing startup that rents computing power to AI developers, said it plans to begin using Nvidia's Vera central processor to host agents, AI systems capable of carrying out long-running tasks for human users. Until now, the company has run such workloads only on Intel and AMD chips. Modal said early tests showed Nvidia's new processor doubled the amount of work AI agents could perform, prompting it to support Nvidia's chip design for the first time. The move will require significant software changes on Modal's side. The startup raised US$750 million last week in a funding round led by Accel at a valuation of $15.75 billion. Modal said it is on track to record $1 billion in sales over the next year, while usage of its services has tripled and revenue has grown more than 15 times year-over-year. Modal Chief Executive Erik Bernhardsson stressed that the company is not abandoning its existing suppliers. Instead, it plans to operate Nvidia processors alongside its Intel and AMD offerings in a mixed fleet, assigning each job to the hardware that performs it best. Bernhardsson said Modal's tests compared Nvidia's processor with Intel and AMD chips already on the market. Both companies are developing newer models that could narrow the performance gap. "We'll test them when they're available," he said, adding that running a mixed setup means the company "can always deploy whatever hardware performs best." Nvidia has told investors it expects to generate at least $20 billion from Vera chip sales this fiscal year as it enters a central processor market it values at roughly $200 billion. The company has previously said OpenAI, Anthropic, and Oracle also plan to use the processors, along with AI startups including Perplexity.