Modal Taps Nvidia Vera CPUs After Preliminary Tests Show 2x Throughput Over AMD and Intel

AI cloud provider Modal has agreed to adopt Nvidia's Arm-based Vera CPUs after preliminary internal evaluations showed the chips could deliver 2x the throughput of its existing AMD and Intel processors, according to Reuters. Nvidia expects Vera CPU sales to generate at least $20B during its current fiscal year, with the company projecting sales of at least 4M Vera CPUs in fiscal 2026 across an estimated $200B total available market. Modal did not disclose the specific AMD and Intel processor models tested, benchmark configurations, or performance-per-watt figures, and the evaluations compared Vera against currently available x86 chips rather than upcoming generations. Because porting its software stack to the Arm v9.2 instruction set requires substantial engineering work, Modal CEO Erik Bernhardsson noted the company will continue using x86 CPUs from AMD and Intel inside a heterogeneous server fleet. The hardware shift follows Modal's $750M financing round led by Accel at a $15.75B valuation, as the startup projects $1B in annual revenue within the next year after service consumption grew 3x over the past 12 months.