Tantra’s Mantra Podcast – Episode 74

Episode 74:

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra Review, with SmartTech Research

Date: Aug 23, 2026
Samsung announced its latest Galaxy Z Fold8 series phones during its Unpacked event on July 22, 2026. This announcement was even more crucial as Samsung seeks to maintain its lead in the form factor it pioneered, with Apple expected to introduce its own foldable device soon.
In this episode, fellow analyst Mark Vena of SmartTech Research and I review the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, exchange experiences and views about the device, how it further enhances the foldable experience compared to Z Fold7, in terms of battery life, brightness, less noticeable crease, and other features, market potential for the new, wider form factor Z Fold8, overall opportunity for the foldable market. We also delve into how the Apple foldable iPhone will affect the market.

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Index

00:00 – Intro
03:18 – 02:40 – Guest intro (Mohamed Awad, EVP, Cloud AI Business Unit at Arm)
04:02 – Internal and external drivers behind Arm’s decision to move from IP #licensing business to products – Meeting customers where they are
05:55 – Specific design choices made to build AGI CPU for Agentic AI – #Performance, #Efficiency, #Scalability
08:36 – Customization vs off-the-shelf – Democratizing off-the-shelf high-performance
13:05 – Focus of AGI CPU market: Hyperscalers w/o custom silicon (e.g. Meta Oracle ), #Neoclouds, moving from Arm in the #cloud to #onprem (e.g. @SAP), #X86 replacement (e.g. F5)
16:50 – AGI CPU fully built on Arm IP availability to licensees, no system or secret sauce. Licensees can develop AGI #CPU clones, if they like
21:00 – Can Hyperscalers using Arm IP for custom silicon learn from AGI CPU?
23:00 – Organizational challenges of changing from IP licensing business to product business (Fab and Memory supply constraints) – Same partners but from different relationship
26:03 – Contributing AGI CPU innovation back to #OCP (Open Compute Project) ecosystem
28:10 – Evolution of AGI CPU – Maximizing memory and I/O bandwidth per core to maximize CPU utilization; Equal access to Arm IP innovations for AGI CPU team and licensee
30:32 – Is making own silicon limited to the #AI infra market, or will it extend to others? – Meeting customers wherever they want (i.e., if market opportunity presents itself)
31:20 – Benefits of AGi CPU to the Arm ecosystem: 1)Hyperscalers both with custom silicon (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA ) and without; 2) Players such as Broadcom, Marvell Technology who help them; 3) Arm IP licensees
34:45 – Interesting landscape of AI infra CPU – X86 duopoly (Intel and @AMD) vs. wide variety of Arm ecosystem
37:49 – Dynamics of roadmap between IP, Compute Subsystem, and AGI CPU
39:25 – What does the success of Arm’s new pivot to making products look in the short and long term
41:18 – Closing
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