AI vendors

Tom's Hardware examines how agentic AI is being adopted in chip design, reporting that Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens are all pitching 'autonomous engineers' within their electronic design automation tools in 2026. The piece assesses how far these AI agents can genuinely automate chip design work today and where the vendors' claims stand against practical reality.

The Eclipse Foundation has announced the launch of the Sovereign AI Foundation, a new initiative aimed at advancing open source approaches to artificial intelligence and giving organisations greater control over AI technology. The move signals growing concern among software communities that AI development is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few large companies, and that open governance models could offer an alternative.

NVIDIA has addressed accusations of circular financing, acknowledging in its own words that "some will call this circular financing." The company is pushing back against concerns that its investments in AI startups indirectly fund purchases of its own chips, inflating demand figures. Critics in the tech and finance world have been scrutinizing NVIDIA's vendor-financing-style deals as the AI investment boom accelerates.