Anthropic is building its own AI chips, and the reason why says a lot about where compute costs are headed. Plus, a new app that turns your neighborhood into an audio tour.
Anthropic just confirmed it's building a custom AI chip design team to co-design hardware alongside Claude, because partner GPUs alone can't keep up with demand. Ashley and Daniel break down why every frontier lab is quietly building an exit ramp off general-purpose GPUs, and what that means for NVIDIA's position at the top. Then: Wrinkles, a new iOS and Android app that uses your location to surface the hidden history of the places around you, plus lets families attach their own memories to real places.
In this episode:
Timestamps
(00:04) Welcome and what's on the show
(00:40) Anthropic hires a custom AI chip design team
(01:07) Why GPU access is a bottleneck, not just a cost
(02:13) Daniel's take: the long-term risk for NVIDIA
(03:07) Wrinkles, the AI-powered audio tour guide
(04:23) Attaching family memories to real places
(05:14) How Wrinkles makes money
(05:41) Ashley's take: 1.3M points of interest, 177 countries
(06:15) Why an Android-at-launch release matters
(06:39) Wrap-up and how to support the show
Links
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Ashley Coffey (00:00.482)
Hi, and welcome back to AI news that you should know about for August 11th. I'm your host, Ashley Coffey.
Daniel Hill (00:07.268)
And I'm Daniel Hill. Every week we give you AI insights, an update on all the news in a very short amount of time. Today on the show, we'll be talking about Anthropic hiring a custom AI chip design team to go co-design their hardware with Claude. And we'll talk about an app that uncovers the hidden stories of the places around you by using AI called Wrinkles. We'll be covering all of that on our show today, but first, here's a quick word from our sponsors.
Ashley Coffey (00:37.43)
Welcome back. All right, let's dive in. Anthropic is hiring a custom AI chip design team to co-design hardware with Claude, saying partner GPUs alone can't meet demand. We're linking a TechCrunch article here. You can read it if you'd like. It's in the show notes. But Anthropic just confirmed it's building its own AI chips, and the same GPU shortage and pricing pressure squeezing consumers is now forcing AI labs to build their own.
Hardware rather than rent it. What does this mean? GPU access has become a bottleneck, not just a cost. Even with deals in place, Amazon Web Services, Google, NVIDIA, and AMD, Anthropic says relying on others, quote, isn't enough to meet Claude's rising demand. This is simply a supply and pricing squeeze, not just ambition. So renting compute at scale is getting more expensive as demand outpaces supply.
Every major AI lab is competing for the same limited GPU capacity, which is driving prices up. So owning custom silicon is a hedge against that. Why do you think Apple decided to build their own chips a while back with the chips? So co-designing a chip and model together can cut inference costs and reduce dependence on Nvidia's pricing power. This is the same logic driving Google's TPUs, Meta's MTAIs, and OpenAI's Broadcom built jalapeno to do the same.
This is now table stakes for Frontier AI labs. Anthropic joins a growing list. Every major player is quietly building an exit ramp off general purpose GPUs. What are your thoughts, Daniel?
Daniel Hill (02:17.015)
This definitely makes sense. Anthropic is looking at what everyone else is doing in this space. It's expensive to create your own hardware, but it meets the demand that you need because you're controlling every step of the process. So it does make sense for Anthropic to do this. I'm not shocked at all, but by the same token, I don't know that this is good for NVIDIA long term. If every single company is building their own chips, NVIDIA is
I believe still the most valuable company on the stock market. Would it stay that way if every single AI company that needs their chips is building their own? So I think this is a really good one to watch, but not sure how this is gonna play out long term for NVIDIA.
Ashley Coffey (03:00.386)
Yeah, good point. We we shall see. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll be talking about Meet Wrinkles, an app that uncovers the hidden stories of the places around you.
Daniel Hill (03:14.361)
Welcome back. Our next story, we're going to talk about an app that uncovers the hidden stories of the places all around you called Wrinkles. One of the biggest use cases of Meta Glasses is to say, hey Meta, what am I looking at? And I personally am someone who really enjoys an audio guide. I love going to museums with my earbuds in, walking around and being told what I'm seeing, the history of it.
I absolutely love that experience as opposed to what we had to do back in the day of reading a guidebook or just not knowing what you were looking at at all. This new app is called Wrinkles and it uses your location to automatically surface stories around about the places around you. This app is available right now for iOS and Android and basically acts like an AI-powered audio tour guide that reveals hidden history and local stories. The idea here is that you can walk around.
And not have to look at your phone and be able to understand what you're looking at, the secrets behind a building, the history of a street, and other local lore. One of the creators of the app came up with the idea while visiting the British Museum in London because he was using its official app for a self-guided tour, but he found the experience frustrating. You have to match the numbers on the walls and type that into your phone. But he said, if my phone knows where I am, shouldn't the police in front of me just
Be a seamless audio experience. This is something I'm very interested in, but it can also actually do more. It can personalize your experience by attaching family memories, photos, videos, and recordings to specific places. Families can collaborate on these histories to preserve stories tied to places like a childhood home, a first date location, or a hometown. This is a concept that's very interesting to me because.
Before my grandmother passed away, I pulled up on Google Maps the house where she grew up, and she told me stories about what it was like to live there as a small child and so forth. Perfect use case to be able to walk up to a building and hear stories from people who grew up in that building as you get the history of what it was like to look live there. I think this is a great concept. The pricing is free for users, but the revenue is going to come from.
Daniel Hill (05:34.959)
Museums, tourism boards, universities, and hotels that use the app to create location-based experiences for visitors who would otherwise, those businesses would otherwise have to build their own apps. Creators and media partners can build sponsored place-based guides, and businesses can promote the Wrinkles app that's connected to their location. Partners can also use links for booking tours, reserving tables, buying tickets, or other things. Ashley, what's your take on this app?
Ashley Coffey (06:05.29)
Very interesting. I wanted to call out here that they've built a global foundation of 1.3 million wrinkles, which is their points of interest, across 177 countries. Mind you, there are about 193.95, depending on who you talk to, total countries. This is almost all of them, 177. That reach is huge. So bravo to them for creating something that people want to be a part of. I just don't like the the name of it because.
It implies it's wrinkles on your face. Like I think of wrinkles, I think they're trying to mean wrinkles and time or something, but it's creative and fun. I like it.
Daniel Hill (06:40.237)
I also want to call out that many times when I see a creative idea and a new app, it's almost always iOS only first. But this is available on Android already. I like the pricing structure. I think businesses like museums who have large amounts of funding available from donors should pay for their content to be inside of an app as opposed to the other way around. Really like this product overall. I can't wait to test it out.
Ashley Coffey (07:05.058)
Same, same.
Daniel Hill (07:06.927)
That is it for our AI news that you should know about this week. You can find links to everything we've discussed in the show notes. And please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It only takes a minute, but it really helps others to find the show and it lets us know that you're listening. We will feature your review on an upcoming episode.
Ashley Coffey (07:26.828)
If you want more tech talk, you can find me on Instagram at AshleyRCoffee89, where can sign up for my free monthly AI newsletter at the link in my bio.
Daniel Hill (07:35.152)
Thank you for listening and come back next time for more AI news you should know about.