Nvidia is expected to report quarterly revenue of $92.18bn, close to double the same period last year and its fastest growth in seven quarters, with analysts forecasting a further rise to $104.20bn in the current quarter.

The numbers are not really the issue anymore, because the scrutiny has moved to how much of that demand the company is underwriting itself after arranging $500bn of financing for customers this month.

The commercial question for the quarter is the transition to Rubin. Shipments of the next-generation processors begin this autumn, and how quickly customers move off Blackwell determines whether the guidance holds.

Morgan Stanley expects Rubin to contribute nearly $9bn in the current quarter, on the argument that it unlocks a large improvement in what the bank calls AI factory economics. Nvidia has already said Vera Rubin is in full production with OpenAI deploying at scale.

The financing arrangements are where the analyst questions have concentrated. Alongside the $500bn package, Nvidia guaranteed up to $105bn for OpenAI’s Ohio data centre, which places the chipmaker somewhere between supplier and lender to its own customers.

“This makes them a kind of central banking figure in the AI space,” said Brian Mulberry of Zacks Investment Management. “The real risk is total AI exposure with no diversification.”

Credit markets have already registered the point. Nvidia’s roughly $750bn of announced AI commitments pushed its own credit default swaps to record levels, which is the bond market saying it would like to see the demand stand on its own.

The structural worry is not that customers cannot pay. It is that a supplier financing purchases of its own product records revenue that looks independent of it, and nobody outside the company can easily separate the two from the income statement.

Customer concentration compounds it. A handful of hyperscalers and model labs account for a very large share of Nvidia’s revenue, and several of them appear on both sides of the ledger as buyers and as recipients of its investment or financing.

Competition is the other pressure, and it is no longer theoretical. Amazon, Google, and Meta all have custom silicon programmes; AMD and Intel are pushing on inference, and inference is the workload that grows fastest once models are deployed rather than trained.

Inference also has different economics to training. It rewards cost per token rather than raw throughput, which is the ground on which custom silicon competes best and where Nvidia’s architectural advantage is least decisive.

Market sentiment has been unusually mixed for a company posting these figures. Nvidia shares are up 11.8% for the year but have lagged the major indices recently, and it briefly lost its position as the world’s most valuable company to Apple.

Cost pressure is now visible in Nvidia’s own pricing too. The company has told customers that AI server prices are rising by more than 15% because of memory shortages, which passes the DRAM crunch straight to the buyers it is simultaneously helping to finance.

The bull case has not gone anywhere in the meantime. Demand for inference capacity keeps outrunning supply; the buildout has years of announced projects behind it, and no competitor has yet matched the software stack that keeps customers on Nvidia hardware once they are there.

The guidance will carry more weight than the reported quarter. A beat on revenue with a soft outlook would confirm what the credit market has been signalling, and a strong outlook invites the follow-up question of how much of it is committed capacity the company arranged the money for.

Neither answer settles the underlying argument. Nvidia can keep growing at this rate for as long as the buildout continues, and the buildout continues for as long as capital keeps arriving, which is a circular sentence describing a circular arrangement.

In an uncharacteristic August launch, Apple has updated the Mac mini, retaining the same design, adding the M6 and M5 Pro processors, and a new record-high starting price.

The release comes almost two years after the then-redesigned M4 Mac mini was released. There’s nothing different externally, with the major change being the M6 processor.

And it comes after wait times were as long as two months on the morning of August 25 for the M4 version of the hardware. It will almost certainly sell out rapidly upon release, and we advise that if you want one, you order one when the preorder period starts.

“Today, we’re debuting the next giant leap in performance and AI compute for Apple silicon with the incredibly advanced M6 and the most powerful M-series chip yet, M5 Ultra,” said Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of Silicon Engineering Group. “Built using the cutting-edge 2 nm process, M6 combines a new CPU complex, two additional CPU and GPU cores, a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, and more unified memory bandwidth to power through workloads with amazing energy efficiency.”

“And for the ultimate desktop performance and the ability to run massive AI models, M5 Ultra features a massive GPU, now with Neural Accelerators, and more unified memory bandwidth, pushing the boundaries of what a desktop can do.”

M6 has a 12-core CPU with two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. Apple says the combo delivers up to 1.2x faster multithreaded performance as compared to M5, and up to 2.4x faster than M1.

Also, the M6 features a 12-core GPU, each with an accompanying Neural Accelerator. Apple also says that this delivers a nearly 30 percent increase in peak GPU compute for AI compared to M5, and more than eight times faster compared to M1.

“Mac mini has always been our most versatile Mac. Whether it’s being used as a home computer, powering a professional studio, or as an always-on agentic device, it’s the little Mac that can do it all,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s chief hardware officer.

“Today, we’re taking this versatility even further. With a more powerful CPU and graphics, Neural Accelerators in the GPU, and higher memory bandwidth, Mac mini with M6 delivers a whole new level of AI performance. And with up to an 18-core CPU and 20-core GPU, Mac mini with M5 Pro is an ultracompact powerhouse for complex pro workflows. We can’t wait to see all the incredible ways people will use it next.”

The new M6 chip supports up to 32GB of unified memory. That RAM also provides up to 170GB/s of unified memory bandwidth.

Both Mac mini M5 and Mac mini M5 Pro models include Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, as well as upgraded 2.5Gb Ethernet. A 10Gb option is available at an extra cost.

Thunderbolt 5 is not universal. On the back, there are three Thunderbolt 4 ports on the Mac mini with M6. The Mac mini with M5 Pro has three Thunderbolt 5 ports, along with HDMI and Ethernet.

At the moment, there is no sign of the first units being made in America. At some point later in 2026 they are expected to be assembled in Houston, TX.

Pricing and availability

Customers can preorder the new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro starting August 25. Neither model ships until September 22.

Mac mini with M6, 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, dual 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD starts at $899.

Mac mini with M5 Pro, 15-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD starts at $1,699.

A $100 discount is available on both models for US military members and in the education store. The $899 price is the Mac mini’s highest starting price yet.

‘Customers increasingly … [use] Mac mini as a powerful platform for agentic AI’, Tim Cook said in July.

After rumours of an impending announcement were published this morning, Apple has officially revealed its first new Mac mini desktop computer in nearly two years, with two new models featuring the company’s new M6 and M5 Pro chips respectively.

With the M6 chip – also newly announced today (25 August) – the Mac mini can deliver up to four-times faster AI performance, two-times faster storage and graphics, and 40pc faster CPU performance, according to Apple.

The M6 is the company’s first 2nm chip, which features a larger 12-core CPU complex with “the world’s fastest CPU core” according to Apple, along with a larger 12-core GPU with neural accelerators, a dual 16-core neural engine, and up to 170 gigabits per second (Gb/s) of unified memory bandwidth.

Meanwhile, the M5 Pro features up to an 18-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU – with neural accelerators in each GPU core – with an “enhanced shader core and third-generation ray tracing for complex work” in 3D design, VFX, and game development. The Mac mini with the M5 Pro also supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 307Gb/s of memory bandwidth.

The Mac mini with M6 is priced from $899, while the version with the M5 Pro is priced at $1,699.

The new Mac mini was announced after Bloomberg reported on its impending reveal earlier today.

Sources told the publication earlier today that the new device was expected in the coming days – the tech giant has since officially unveiled the device.

This is likely the last new product launch under CEO Tim Cook, who is set to retire on 1 September.

The upgrade to Apple’s Mac mini line follows a growth in demand for the small, portable device popularly used to run AI applications locally.

“We’re seeing customers increasingly … [use] Mac mini as a powerful platform for agentic AI [or] deploying clusters of Mac Studio systems to run frontier-class models locally,” Cook said at the company’s last earnings call in July.

The machine is available for pre-order starting today, according to the company, with the product set to launch on 22 September.

The Mac mini is one of a number of Apple products set to launch soon, including the iPhone 18 Pro, Apple’s first foldable smartphone, a new range of Apple Watches, updated AirPods and a smart home device.

The company is also readying a new Apple TV set-top box, a HomePod mini smart speaker and a revamped iPad mini with an OLED screen.

The memory chip crunch has hit consumer device developers hard. Earlier this year, Apple announced that it was hiking prices for several of its products, including Macs and iPads, as a result of the global chip shortage.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage”, a company spokesperson said at the time, adding that Apple had “never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly”.

According to Counterpoint Research, global smartphone shipments are poised to drop nearly 14pc in 2026, with prices expected to jump by as much as 13pc.

The Mac mini has been a particular problem for Apple in supply chain terms, with deliveries taking weeks or months to be completed. Cook said that the company’s new advanced manufacturing centre in Houston, Texas will be assembling Mac minis starting “later this year”.

With additional reporting by Colin Ryan

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Updated, 3.55pm, 25 August 2026: This article was amended to include up-to-date information on the new Mac mini, as the device was officially announced shortly after our article was published.

I’ve been hooked on smoothies in an almost superstitious way ever since college: A fruit smoothie is like a good luck charm, promising the health you feel you deserve despite all your other bad decisions. But in my more recent adult life, a good blender is the passport to taqueria salsas, Oaxacan-style mole, and all the delicate emulsions I once had to buy at restaurants and in jars.

Well, Vitamix crushes the blender game, but usually comes with a price tag to match. Luckily Vitamix promo codes crop up at various points during the year, and we’re here to help you stay up to date on those discounts.

The Vitamix Made Me a Blender Person—No Kale Required

The spin cycle is this machine’s sweet spot.

Vitamix New Ascent X5 With Stainless Steel Container

Vitmix’s top-of-the-line blender model, Ascent X5, is now constructed with a stainless steel container. The 48-ounce stainless steel container is not only huge and hygienic, the machine itself combines an intuitive touch interface with a refined, timeless design. The non-reactive stainless steel material resists stains, odors, and corrosion, and expertly handles hot, cold, and acidic ingredients. This futuristic gadget also has an automatic self-cleaning program and ten blending programs for popular items like smoothies, soups, frozen cocktails and more for a precise blend, every time.

Get a $50 Vitamix Promo Code Plus Free Shipping

Vitamix has tons of ways to save on these handy kitchen gear items, including $50 off when you register your email. All you have to do is input your email on Vitamix’s website, and you’ll get a discount of up to $50 sent straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get free shipping on orders of $100 or more.

IMAGE COURTESY OF VITAMIX

Does Vitamix Offer Free Shipping?

Glad you asked. Vitamix is offering free standard shipping for orders above $99. This pretty much means that ground shipping is free for blenders at the current discounts. Priority shipping is not free, however.

The WIRED Gear Team’s Favorite Vitamix Blenders

WIRED has long been singing the praises of the classic Vitamix 5200. The model made a blender convert out of contributing reviewer Joe Ray after he realized that the “model of preference for blender aficionados around the world” was also his key to home mole and Oaxacan-style cookery.

A similar road-to-Damascus moment beset WIRED contributing reviewer Heather Arndt Anderson when she tested the Vitamix Ascent X2, also currently on a $50 promo discount. “The more I thought about it,” she wrote, “the more I realized that maybe I’ve never been a blender person because I never had a good blender.” Anderson also made a big batch of mole and avoided passing out from chile fumes, then moved on to homemade masa and a Georgian walnut spread. She regretted only that the blender wasn’t easier to clean.

After testing through a number of brands’ blenders, WIRED contributing reviewer Emily Peck marveled that even the basic Vitamix Explorian E310 churned almonds frictionlessly into butter without even need of a presoak.

Apple just announced the Mac mini with M5 Pro and you’ll need one with 64GB of RAM to run the Junie Local model, a free 27B parameter coding agent that compares to Sonnet 4.5 or GPT-5.

JetBrains developed Junie as a coding agent that runs on your Mac and calls out to models the user chose. That always required some configuration and sending data off to some other AI product, so JetBrains has built Junie Local.

According to a blog post by JetBrains, Junie Local installs with a single command, takes about 20GB of space, and requires at least an M5 Mac with 64GB of RAM. Apple’s recently announced Mac mini costs $2,699 to meet that spec with an M5 Pro processor.

It runs using Qwen3.6-27B at 4-bit and is entirely local. There is no need for tokens or sending data to someone else’s server.

JetBrains targeted the M5 processor as the base spec due to the Neural Accelerator having 8-bit arithmetic instructions, which enables around 40% more prefill throughput. Qwen has a newer version, 3.8, but 3.6 was chosen since it’s faster without the “reasoning” required for 3.8.

The blog post suggests that JetBrains testing placed the 27B parameter coding agent on par with Sonnet 4.5 at a 10,000-token reasoning limit. GPT-5 at medium effort scored slightly higher.

Here’s what JetBrains had to say about the minimum spec requirements:

We know that an M5 Mac with 64 GB of RAM is a big ask. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we know it puts Junie Local out of reach for many people reading the post.

That is simply what it costs to run a 27B model well today, and it is the number we are working hardest to bring down. The aim is a lower memory floor, wider hardware, and more of the stack optimized. If the lofty requirements are the reason you cannot try Junie Local, rest assured that we are working to bring them down.

Advertisement

JetBrains says that the Mac is a starting point, not the whole plan. It has started work for DGX Spark and RTX 5090, and they’ve looked at supporting 24GB cards.

Junie Local is free to install. Type /local into Junie and it installs. Switch back to cloud models using /model

• AI authorship is increasingly employed for web pages, Pew Research Center report claims
• Over 33% of pages published since the launch of ChatGPT reportedly show signs of AI generation
• Of the 10,000-page sample used in the study, 10% of pages had signs of AI authorship

An incredible 35% of web pages published since the launch of ChatGPT show signs of AI authorship, new research has claimed.

A study from the Pew Research Center, which used automated tools to assess a sample of 10,000 web pages, also found that in the entire sample – based on data from the Common Crawl project – almost 10% of all pages had signs of AI creation.