At Hot Chips ‘26, all eyes were on AI costs, GPUs

System architecture changes were also a big part of the conversation at Hot Chips, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research, who attended the show. Most presentations focused on eliminating bottlenecks in data movement, advanced chip designs and computing closer to or inside memory, he said.

Enterprise AI is likely to become increasingly heterogeneous, Sopko said. As a result, IT decision-makers should design AI architectures so they can move between GPUs, CPUs and specialized chips as the economics of AI change, he said.

“The strategic risk isn’t choosing the wrong chip in 2026. It’s building an AI architecture that prevents you from taking advantage of a much cheaper or better one in 2028,” Sopko said.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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