New GaN transistor withstands near 4000V

This breakthrough pushes GaN into a voltage class previously dominated by silicon carbide, which could shift design choices in high-power infrastructure like data-center rectifiers and EV inverters. The reported combination of high breakdown voltage and low resistance matters because efficiency losses scale with both, making it a potential cost and thermal-management lever for grid-linked systems. Who this affects most are power-electronics engineers and component buyers, but the key caveat is lab-to-fab scalability and reliability under real-world thermal cycling. Whether this material can be commercialized at competitive yields is the open question, not the voltage number itself.