Modal plans to run AI agent Sandboxes on Nvidia Vera CPUs

Modal says adopting Vera will be its first move away from x86 processors, and it will add Arm chips to its fleet for the first time.[1] Vera is based on Arm’s processor design.[1] The planned deployment is for Sandboxes, which Modal describes as isolated computers where AI agents run code they write.[1] Nvidia hand-delivered Modal’s first Vera server to its San Francisco office last week.[1] Modal announced the plan in a blog post on Monday.[1]

Modal says its tests found Vera handled up to twice as many tasks as an Intel server when loaded with containers.[1] Modal’s website separately says that under heavy load, Vera completes far more tasks than x86 and Graviton alternatives without sacrificing latency.[2] The benchmark results have not been independently checked.[1] For teams evaluating the processor, that caveat matters: the claims are company-reported results, not an independent comparison. The announcement also indicates that a switch is not simply a processor swap; Modal says it will need to change its infrastructure and software-image build system.[1]

Nvidia says Vera is now in full production and describes it as the first CPU built for AI agents.[3] The company lists agentic AI, reinforcement learning and data processing among the workloads for the processor.[3] Nvidia says Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI are among the AI labs planning to adopt Vera.[3] Reuters reported that Modal had relied entirely on Intel and AMD chips before Nvidia secured its central-processor business.[4] Reuters also described Nvidia’s move into central processors as gaining traction in a market long controlled by Intel and AMD.[4]

Modal said its Sandboxes product generates $300 million a year.[1] The company also said it had crossed $1 billion in annualized run rate and raised a $750 million Series D led by Accel.[5] Modal was valued at $15.75 billion last week.[1] Those figures provide context for the scale of the company adopting Vera, but they do not establish how much of Modal’s business will run on the new CPU or when the planned deployment will be complete. The available announcement describes the plan and the required system changes, rather than a completed migration.[1]