At Hot Chips ‘26, all eyes were on AI costs, GPUs — and the future

When you think of AI, and Nvidia’s GPUs often come to mind because they have been so much a part of the ongoing AI revolution. But at the recent Hot Chips show in California, an alternative future appears to be taking shape as corporate concerns continue to grow about cost, energy use and AI slowdowns. New AI chips detailed at the event by OpenAI, Intel, Meta and others promise cheaper and faster token generation at lower power consumption.