Dylan PatelFounder and Chief Analyst, SemiAnalysis · The semiconductor-AI stack

LLMs Can Write Kernels Now

18 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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Dylan Patel explains how Silicon Valley startups are shifting strategy because AI models like Claude Code and Sonnet 3 can now write high-quality kernels and compilers. The capability gap that once seemed impossible has closed, forcing companies to rethink what they build.

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The entire Silicon Valley, like 80% of the startups here, are starting to rethink everything. What we had been doing previously was a lot of work on improving quality of kernel generation. These days, you can actually get pretty nice kernels out of Claude Code and Codex and everything, now that coding has come this far. I remember when Sonnet came out, like Sonnet 3, when we first saw models that were actually really good. And I remember people were talking about, they're saying, look, all right, it does frontend, it does this, but does it do the complicated stuff? Does it do kernels? Does it do compilers? And it turns out the answer is yes.