Good morning. When I first met Alice Globus, Nanotronics’ CFO, about a year ago, we mostly discussed how her background in astrophysics led her to finance. But our most recent conversation featured another topic: creating energy-efficient compound semiconductors.
Brooklyn-based Nanotronics uses AI, robotics, and advanced imaging to reduce waste and automate manufacturing processes. The company, backed by Peter Thiel, has Fortune 500 customers working on projects in genomics, medicine, electric vehicles, and aerospace.
I talked with Globus about the company’s focus on Cubefabs, its AI-enabled chip factory. These “highly compact” facilities can be built in most climates and geographies around the world, and are increasingly viable alternatives to traditional megafactories, according to Nanotronics.
Most of the facility can be preassembled and put in containers to be shipped globally. They are assembled by installing a single-service cube in the center, where offices would be, and attaching up to four surrounding nanofactories, with each housing two clean rooms for the production of semiconductors. A single Cubefab installation could be built in about a year and start with a one-acre facility, according to the company. The design of a Cubefab looks like a clover. Depending on size, the price range is about $20 million to $100 million.
Nanotronics is in the process of site selection to build a Cubefab prototype, Globus said. “We’re talking with several municipalities to decide that,” she said.
A focus on energy efficiency
Cubefabs would produce compound semiconductors that are used in data centers—different from the AI chips OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman wants to raise up to $7 trillion to create, Fortune reported. Essentially, those chips would be a solution to the scarcity of AI chips created to train large language models.
“A lot of people don’t realize that there are different types of chips,” Globus explained. Nanotronics’ chips would enhance “power switches,” a name that refers to “where power is being routed through the data center and controls how things are being optimized within the facility,” she said. If these switches in the factory are more energy efficient, that could lead to a reduction of heat produced by these facilities.
Cubefabs produce chips using gallium oxide, a material five times more efficient and versatile than silicon, with lower production and resource requirements, according to Globus.
“The world is getting hungrier for AI and therefore increasing the power consumption, which is also going to increase the cost of using AI in general,” Globus said. “In terms of a growth opportunity for Nanotronics, we’re really helping our customers to become more energy efficient, to increase their yields, to reduce their power consumption, and ultimately reduce their costs.”
Globus doesn’t feel Nanotronics is competing with other semiconductor companies, she said. “First of all, we’re not chip designers,” she explained. “We’re licensing the chip design from others. We’re helping traditional semiconductor customers build fabs [or production facilities] as well. We’re able to do everything from R&D to production.”
From a CFO’s perspective, why does Globus think Cubefabs presents a good opportunity for Nanotronics? “The world is becoming more conscious of how they can find efficiencies within their own businesses, and they’re looking to AI to do that,” she said. And after so many big companies did due diligence in 2023 on how to use AI—many worked with top consulting firms—now “2024 is going to be a year of executing on those plans.”
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
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Leaderboard
Bradley T. Camden was named EVP and CFO at Kemper Corporation (NYSE: KMPR), effective immediately. Camden has served as Interim CFO since September 2023. Camden joined Kemper in 2020 as SVP and treasurer. Prior to Kemper, Camden spent 15 years at Northern Trust Asset Management, where he served in a number of finance leadership roles, including head of long duration fixed income.
Ronald Ballschmiede, CFO at Sterling Infrastructure, Inc. (NasdaqGS: STRL), plans to retire in 2024. Ballschmiede will stay on as CFO until his successor is named and will continue for a transition period.
Big deal
Taking a look at trends for tech professionals who are actively seeking jobs, a new report from CompTIA finds that two-thirds say they are aware of AI’s potential impact on the workforce. Nearly half are using, or plan to use, AI-enabled career tools to help with their job search. Millennials are the most engaged with AI and Baby Boomers the least. However, 30% report a degree of frustration trying to get their credentials through employers’ automated systems and in front of a real person.
Going deeper
"Ex-Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor and longtime Googler Clay Bavor raised $110 million to bring AI ‘agents’ to business," a new Fortune article by Kylie Robison, delves into the startup and how the idea that began over lunch has now grown into a team of 30 staffers, with an office in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. "The AI 'agents' created by Sierra technology are already engaged in hundreds of thousands of customer conversations every month for clients including Weight Watchers, SiriusXM, Sonos, and OluKai, according to the company," Robison writes.
Overheard
"Everybody would like to see grocery prices come down–even grocers, because that would mean costs have leveled out."
—Tyler Renaghan, VP of grocery at Upside, wrote in a Fortune opinion piece. Renaghan, who has 15 years of experience in grocery retail and e-commerce, works to help grocers grow their businesses.
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