CEO, Founder at Techstrong
Alan Shimel
Alan Shimel writes for Techstrong Semi.
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8 articles
Apple’s M7 Ultra is About Securing the Homeland
Apple may be preparing to build one of the most formidable AI server processors in the market. That does not mean it wants to become the next AWS. According to Mark Gurman’s latest Bloomberg Power On report, Apple is accelerating development of an AI-focused M7 generation, including an M7 Ultra designed to support as much […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 14, 2026 · 8 min
Is SK hynix the Power Behind NVIDIA’s Throne?
For most of the computer era, memory chips were the semiconductor industry’s supporting cast. Necessary, certainly. Occasionally scarce. Often expensive at precisely the wrong moment. But they were not what made people line up for product launches or drove investors into a frenzy. Processors were where the action was. Memory was the mundane stuff sitting […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 13, 2026 · 9 min
AI Doesn’t Need to Own the Plane
The reported compute agreements involving Google, Anthropic, and SpaceX immediately generated questions about scale. Google is said to be committing roughly $920 million per month for AI compute capacity, while Anthropic has reportedly entered into a similarly significant arrangement. Combined, the agreements represent access to hundreds of thousands of GPUs and billions of dollars in […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 9, 2026 · 4 min
Cisco Needs Its Own Silicon to Compete in AI Infrastructure
For most of Cisco’s history, the company occupied a well-defined place in the technology stack. Cisco built the networks that connected everything else. Servers evolved. Storage evolved. Applications evolved. Cisco moved the packets between them. That position created one of the most successful companies in technology history. It may not be enough for the AI […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 3, 2026 · 5 min
Every AI Story Eventually Becomes a Semiconductor Story
When I started covering technology, semiconductors were one of those industries that most people acknowledged as important but rarely paid much attention to. Chips were the engines underneath the hood. They powered servers, PCs, networking equipment and eventually smartphones, but they generally weren’t the story. The story was the software, the applications, the platforms and […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 2, 2026 · 5 min
Apple Was the Target. Intel May Be the Casualty
Microsoft and NVIDIA do not usually coordinate their social feeds for fun. So when the two companies posted matching teasers on May 29 promising “a new era of PC,” complete with map coordinates pointing at a venue in Taipei, the timing was not subtle. Computex opens June 2, Jensen Huang has a keynote, and the […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 1, 2026 · 6 min
NVIDIA Plays a Delicate Balancing Game
NVIDIA’s recent announcement that it plans to invest roughly $150 billion annually in Taiwan and establish a major headquarters presence there generated headlines around the world. Given Taiwan’s role in the semiconductor industry, the move was hardly surprising. TSMC manufactures NVIDIA’s most advanced chips, and the broader ecosystem of suppliers, packaging specialists and manufacturing partners […]
Alan Shimel · Jun 1, 2026 · 5 min
The AI Tariff We Are All Going to Pay (And it’s Not Energy Prices)
I recently wrote about the BYOP movement, where datacenter providers are increasingly making datacenter plans that include dedicated power, so consumers do not wind up paying a tax for the data center industry’s exploding energy demands. But there is another, perhaps bigger AI tax that we are going to
Alan Shimel · Mar 10, 2026 · 5 min