Blaize Holdings Inc. shares surged in U.S. pre-market trading on 18 July after the edge-AI specialist disclosed an agreement worth at least $120 million with Starshine Computing Power Technology to deploy hybrid AI infrastructure across Asia. The 18-month contract, set to begin in Blaize’s fiscal third quarter, will roll out the company’s Graph Streaming Processor-based inference accelerators alongside GPUs in five markets—India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and China—supporting smart-city projects, industrial automation and public services. Blaize estimates the partnership addresses a $112 billion smart-cities opportunity in the region and says its energy-efficient, edge-focused architecture will reduce power consumption and latency while enabling real-time decision-making. The minimum revenue commitment is equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the company’s roughly $306 million market value before the announcement. The stock, up about 90 percent in pre-market trade, later received an upgrade to Buy from Rosenblatt. The cost to borrow the shares also spiked, with the borrow rate rising to around 82 percent, underscoring heightened investor demand following the deal.