Etched announced a working inference chip and over $1 billion in signed contracts after emerging from stealth with $800 million raised and a $5 billion valuation. Their rack-scale system, built on TSMC’s N4P process, is already running models like DeepSeek, Qwen and Llama, and production is ramping at new Taiwan and San Jose facilities.

The article compares cost-plus and value-based pricing for AI inference resellers, showing how cost-plus margins shrink as inference commoditizes while value-based charges per outcome retain durable margins. It also covers cost-optimization tactics—model routing, caching, distillation—and explains why bring-your-own-key customers break cost-plus but still fit value-based and optimization models.