Chris Rust

SpaceX and Elon Musk are seeking to solve the impending AI data storage bottleneck problem by launching up to a million solar-powered satellites. They will be well-served to contact Lior Bar-Shalom of Arbell Energy LTD, whose revolutionary technology doubles the efficiency of current solar energy capture. Just this past week, Arbell - a recent graduate of CREATION-SPACE's Expand accelerator - won the Audience Choice Award at Israel Space Forum's IL Space Pitch 2026 in Tel Aviv. #solarenergy #Israelitech #startupnation #accesstospace #spacetech #ai #spacex #energyefficiency https://lnkd.in/eZJkaYC5

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Impressive progress from our portfolio Array Labs with a $20m Series A to scale radar manufacturing and prepare for launch. Designing radar systems for mass manufacturing, borrowing from consumer electronics and telecoms, is a powerful unlock for cost, speed, and deployment at scale. The traction speaks for itself: nine-figure contracted revenue, multiple government awards, and expanding product lines. Exciting to see this next phase of execution begin. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/e93jz4k8 #SpaceTech #DualUse #Radar #DefenceTech #NewSpace

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An excellent read, and explains why Carbice is the essential cooling and systems reliability solution for AI chips and datacenter, whether on ground or in space -- and why everyone from Dow to mission-critical military satellites rely on them https://lnkd.in/ggBcvsaR

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Another major leap forward for AST SpaceMobile and for space-enabled telecom. This week, AST announced a formal commercial agreement with Verizon to bring direct-to-cell services to Verizon customers starting in 2026. It builds on Verizon’s $100M strategic investment made last year and follows a series of successful trials. AST now holds commercial agreements with AT&T, Vodafone, and Verizon, a powerful endorsement of its direct-to-device model. Meanwhile, Verizon continues to work with Skylo, another Seraphim Space portfolio company, in the growing non-terrestrial connectivity space. Two Seraphim-backed pioneers at the centre of a market that’s redefining what “always connected” truly means. More on the news here: https://lnkd.in/ey8wU8RZ #SeraphimSpace #SpaceTech #Connectivity #DirectToCell #Telecom #Innovation #5G #NewSpace #ASTSpaceMobile #Skylo

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I’ve been working on the theory of why small, shippable factories are the perfect inversion to the centralized prefab factory model. It all collapsed into one line of math (credit to Gilles Retsin): Factory Efficiency = Usage × (Throughput × Product Value ) / ( CapEx + Deployment OpEx) The idea is that the closer you can drive Usage to 100 % while keeping the denominator tiny, the faster the flywheel spins.  A shippable microfactory tackles this by primarily focusing on a high Usage factor. Because the microfactory can be packed up afterwards and reused, its CapEx gets amortized over multiple projects, effectively raising its overall Usage across the year. If one project alone doesn’t fully occupy the factory, it can simply roll over to another job to maintain high Usage. Its CapEx is often an order of magnitude lower than a centralized factory (< $1M vs. $10-50M min), so the breakeven throughput is more achievable on a small pipeline of work. The real breakthrough here is portability. There is near-zero stranded capital and almost no idle time. To flesh this theory out, I wrote 3000 words on the topic for Brad Hargreaves and Thesis Driven. The article breaks down: - why “fixed factories, shipped goods” is being inverted to shipped factories, fixed goods - what a sub‑$1 M robotic cell does to CapEx per home versus a £45 M off‑site plant - early production/cost data on a shippable microfactory from Mollie Claypool, Gilles Retsin, Sam Baker and the Automated Architecture (AUAR) team - the hybrid reality of robots tackling the heavy structural components and human crews assembling faster and cheaper - technical constraints to pull this model off and future considerations on the optimal business model (own vs. rent) Major shoutout to Gilles Retsin for helping me pull this together. https://lnkd.in/eRTnbZPa

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Tenstorrent has launched the Open Chiplet Atlas™ Ecosystem — creating a truly open chiplet market. “The future of silicon is heterogeneous and composable,” said Wei-han Lien, Chief Architect at Tenstorrent. “The OCA Ecosystem establishes the foundation of trust and interoperability needed to unlock the full potential of multi-vendor chiplet-based SoC products. This is not just a new standard—it’s the beginning of a collaborative community that will drive the next generation of system innovation. The OCA Ecosystem starts a new silicon design paradigm.” Join the Open Hardware Revolution —> https://lnkd.in/eTF8f96n

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As AI workloads eat up global computing supply, DRAM prices are surging like never before—creating major challenges for teams trying to plan out their data center spend. One of my portfolio companies, Mext, is addressing the largest cost component in the datacenter: server memory (DRAM). From being on the board of Redis for the last twelve years, I’ve learned a lot about the various aspects of this problem and approaches to solving them. Mext found a breakthrough, using new AI techniques, for dramatically reducing the amount of server-DRAM required to run applications, all while maintaining performance. It intelligently manages the server’s memory, keeping hot pages (i.e., those in use by applications) in fast DRAM and offloading cold pages (i.e., those less used) to a much less expensive memory tier (e.g., NVMe Flash). Key to the approach is ensuring cold memory pages that are about to be accessed by an application are back in DRAM before the application needs them or notices that they were gone. This is done without modifications to the application or the OS – so it can run in the cloud or on-premise. Mext thus allows applications to either run using less DRAM or keep their DRAM footprint but do more with it. They're hosting a webinar along with Fred Weber (former CTO of AMD) on Jan 22nd at 10am pacific time. You can register here: https://lnkd.in/gXe9GCeE

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Silicon Valley’s AI Data Centers Sit Idle Amid Severe Power Grid Bottlenecks Power-Hungry Facilities Ready—But Grid Isn’t Two state-of-the-art data centers in Santa Clara—Digital Realty’s 48MW SJC37 and Stack Infrastructure’s 48MW SVY02A—are completed but sit unused. Despite their readiness to support AI-intensive computing, both remain unpowered due to electricity shortfalls. Together, they represent nearly 100 megawatts of idle capacity—a stark illustration of infrastructure lag in the AI era. Key Facility and Grid Challenges • Digital Realty’s SJC37: – 430,000 sq. ft. across four stories, designed for 48MW of critical load. – Remains offline with no energization timeline. • Stack Infrastructure’s SVY02A: – Includes 8 data halls and its own substation. – Also designed for 48MW, but power delivery is on hold. • Santa Clara’s utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP): – Managing 57 data centers (active or in-progress). – Investing $450M in grid upgrades, expected by 2028. – Power delivery is being sequenced as substations and transmission lines come online. National Trend of Grid Strain • Northern Virginia, Pacific Northwest, Southeast U.S.: – Facing 2–5 year delays for data center connections. – Microsoft has acknowledged idle GPUs due to power shortages. • AI infrastructure now demands hundreds of megawatts per cluster—overwhelming current grid capacity timelines. Why It Matters The bottleneck in energy availability isn’t just a local hiccup—it reflects a systemic lag between digital infrastructure growth and utility modernization. While AI builders race ahead with new compute demands, local grids are stuck in regulatory and construction bottlenecks. These idle sites—mere minutes from Nvidia’s HQ—underscore that even global tech giants can’t outpace the grid. The risk: AI innovation stalls not from lack of chips, but from lack of electricity. I share daily insights with 33,000+ followers and 11,000+ professional contacts across defense, tech, and policy. If this topic resonates, I invite you to connect and continue the conversation. Keith King https://lnkd.in/gHPvUttw

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