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Breaking semiconductor news, earnings, and announcements — the full daily feed.
Intel Positions Xeon and New GPU as Foundational Agentic AI Infrastructure
Intel has announced a broad push to optimize its data center infrastructure for agentic AI, pairing new Xeon-based rack designs with its GPU D-series and a software strategy intended to tie CPUs, GPUs, and open models into a single deployment path. The announcements came at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit. The company’s main […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 16, 2026 · 2 min
Pentagon Offers Wolfspeed $1.5B Loan for Chip Production
The U.S. Department of War is offering advanced chip materials firm Wolfspeed up to $1.5 billion in long-term financing to strengthen domestic production of advanced power semiconductors and develop chips for defense and national security applications. The company says it plans to use the financing to upgrade its GaN epitaxy capabilities for next-generation communications infrastructure […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 15, 2026 · 2 min
Microsoft Plans Upgraded Custom AI Chips for 2027
Microsoft is preparing to release a new generation of its Azure Maia custom AI accelerator to multi-gigawatt deployments beginning in 2027, positioning its in-house silicon as the primary inference platform for the company’s products and services. Microsoft already has the Maia 200 available in Azure and has just announced the third generation of the custom […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 14, 2026 · 2 min
CXMT Targets Server Memory Market With New Architecture
China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is continuing its rapid assault on the DRAM market, unleashing a torrent of new supplies into markets that desperately need it. Its latest development is a new DDR5 server memory module planned for the end of 2026. The company is preparing to expand into the high-end server memory market with […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 13, 2026 · 2 min
OpenAI and Synopsys Partner to Develop AI Model for Chip Design
OpenAI and Synopsys announced a multi-year strategic partnership to develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized artificial intelligence model designed to automate and optimize semiconductor design workflows. The agreement combines OpenAI’s advanced AI models with Synopsys’ electronic design automation (EDA) software and semiconductor engineering expertise. OpenAI will license Synopsys’ EDA tools to develop the specialized model, with the […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 13, 2026 · 2 min
Global Semiconductor Sales Top $1 Trillion as AI Drives Record Growth
Global semiconductor sales have exceeded $1 trillion in the first eight months of 2026, reaching a historic milestone as demand for AI infrastructure fuels extraordinary growth across the chip sector. Worldwide semiconductor sales totaled $159.7 billion in August, up 144.3% from $65.4 billion in August 2025, according to figures released October 5 by the Semiconductor […]
James Maguire · Oct 12, 2026 · 2 min
Quantum Chip Breakthrough Improves Energy Forecasting
An Australian quantum computing project has demonstrated that quantum-enhanced processing could improve the accuracy of household energy forecasts, which could give utilities a new tool for managing increasingly complex power grids. Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC), a government-funded startup, and French electrical giant Schneider Electric have reported an average 20% improvement in next-day household energy forecasting […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 8, 2026 · 2 min
NTT Pushes Optical Interconnects as the Answer to Power and Bandwidth Limits
Imagine NVIDIA GPUs no longer needing a heat sink or cooling. Your smartphone never gets hot no matter how long you play a video game, and its battery lasts for days. It’s a distant promise, but it is inching toward reality. Japan’s NTT is pursuing a fundamentally different approach to the power and bandwidth constraints […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 8, 2026 · 2 min
SpaceX Seeking $40 Billion Debt Package to Fund Massive NVIDIA AI Chips Purchase: Report
SpaceX is in discussions with major financial institutions and asset managers to buy $40 billion in financing to purchase artificial intelligence (AI) processors from NVIDIA Corp., underscoring extraordinary capital demands of the ongoing AI infrastructure boom. Elon Musk’s aerospace manufacturer is seeking approximately $10 billion in bank loans alongside $30 billion in investment-grade debt, according […]
Jon Swartz · Oct 7, 2026 · 2 min
Huawei-Qualcomm Patent Deal Extends Chip Rivals’ Ties Across AI and 5G
Huawei and Qualcomm have signed a multi-year patent licensing agreement spanning 5G, AI, computing and networking, creating a new intellectual property link between two major players in the global semiconductor and communications markets. The agreement gives each company access to patents held by the other and includes Qualcomm’s purchase of selected Huawei U.S. patents. Those […]
James Maguire · Oct 6, 2026 · 2 min
Despite Differences, U.S. and China Maintain RISC-V Cooperation
U.S. and Chinese companies are not letting increased tensions between Washington and Beijing stop them from working together on RISC-V, the open instruction-set architecture that is emerging as an alternative to proprietary CPU architectures such as Arm and x86. MIPS, the U.S. processor intellectual-property company acquired by GlobalFoundries last year, has a particularly close relationship […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 6, 2026 · 2 min
Quantum Phononic Links Could Help Scale Chips to Higher Qubit Levels
Researchers have developed a quantum chip architecture that uses vibrations called phonons to connect qubits across long distances, potentially addressing a key obstacle to building large-scale quantum computers. The technology, Quantum Phononic Links (QPLs), is designed to allow qubits that are physically separated to exchange quantum information. The researchers say the approach can support connections […]
James Maguire · Oct 6, 2026 · 2 min
AMD’s Venice Server CPU Demand Reportedly Extends Into 2028
AMD’s next-generation EPYC Venice server processors are reportedly seeing such strong demand that much of the company’s expected 2027 production has already been sold, with industry channel checks suggesting AMD is now taking orders extending into 2028. The reports come as server CPUs take on a changing role in AI systems. While GPUs and dedicated […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 5, 2026 · 2 min
Broadcom to Finance Up to $42 Billion of Anthropic TPU Buildout
Broadcom has agreed to provide up to $42 billion in financing to Anthropic to help fund the AI company’s massive expansion of computing infrastructure, deepening a relationship that puts Broadcom at the center of Anthropic’s custom AI accelerator strategy. The financing is tied to Anthropic’s agreement to lease $125.2 billion worth of tensor processing unit […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 5, 2026 · 2 min
Amazon Explores $8 Billion Deal to Offload NVIDIA AI Chips: Report
Amazon.com Inc. is seeking to offload about $8 billion worth of advanced NVIDIA artificial intelligence (AI) chips to outside investors to strengthen its balance sheet and fund its aggressive AI expansion, according to a Financial Times report. Under the proposed arrangement, Amazon held talks with investors in recent weeks to gauge interest in transferring thousands […]
Jon Swartz · Oct 2, 2026 · 2 min
WiCi Targets Local AI With Wireless GPU Architecture
A startup called WiCi Technology is taking a different approach to client-side AI computing. Instead of putting a high-end GPU inside every PC or edge device, the company wants to make GPUs accessible wirelessly across a local network. WiCi is preparing to launch WiCi One, a dedicated wireless GPU system that combines standard PC hardware […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 2, 2026 · 3 min
AWS Signs $1 Billion Synopsys Deal to Expand Custom Chip Design
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed a multiyear agreement with Synopsys worth more than $1 billion to license chip design intellectual property, deepening the cloud provider’s push to develop increasingly sophisticated custom processors for AI and cloud infrastructure. The agreement expands a 15-year relationship between the companies and makes Amazon the lead customer for Synopsys’ […]
Andy Patrizio · Oct 1, 2026 · 2 min
Huawei Targets AI Inference Bottlenecks With Memory Storage Accelerator
Huawei has introduced a new storage architecture aimed at addressing the rapidly expanding amount of key-value (KV) cache data generated by long-context and multi-turn workloads, which has emerged as a major bottleneck in large-scale AI inference. The OceanStor M900 Context Memory Storage, unveiled at HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 in Shanghai, is designed to provide hyperscale AI […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 30, 2026 · 2 min
China Challenges US Chip Restrictions as Alibaba Unveils Ambitious AI Roadmap
China’s push to develop its own AI chips has gained momentum with announcements from Alibaba and Huawei, strengthening President Xi Jinping’s position as he meets with President Donald Trump for a multi-day state visit to Washington. The new technology releases demonstrate China’s determination to reduce its reliance on U.S. semiconductor technology, and to overcome U.S. […]
James Maguire · Sep 24, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2026 Features New Hardware, Software
Qualcomm used the opening day of its Snapdragon Summit to outline a broad strategy for everything from smartphone chips to the next phase of artificial intelligence, with agentic AI emerging as the central theme of the company’s latest platforms. The highlight of the opening day was the introduction of two flagship smartphone processors: the Snapdragon […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 24, 2026 · 2 min
Germany and Netherlands Invest €40 Million to Accelerate AI Chip Design
Germany and the Netherlands have launched a €40 million initiative to develop AI-powered semiconductor design technology, seeking to strengthen Europe’s chip industry and reduce its reliance on U.S. technology. The new joint initiative brings together Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation (SPRIND) and the Netherlands’ National Agency for Disruptive Innovation (NADI). The agencies will fund […]
James Maguire · Sep 23, 2026 · 2 min
Can a Laser Write Memory Directly Into Silicon?
Researchers are exploring whether ultrafast light could directly create persistent, addressable memory states inside silicon, with verification, retention and neighbor isolation determining whether the concept can become practical.
Burak Oktenli · Sep 23, 2026 · 3 min
DARPA Backs Project Aiming for 100x Lower Energy Use
A Georgia Tech-led research team with funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a new approach to computer logic that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy required to process information. The project explores whether nanoscale mechanical strain can be used alongside electrical signals to perform computing operations. The researchers […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 22, 2026 · 2 min
GlobalFoundries, Marvell Expand Partnership to Boost Optical Connectivity
GlobalFoundries and Marvell Technology are expanding their longstanding manufacturing partnership to increase production capacity for high-speed optical processors. The agreement announced by the two companies will increase production capacity for GlobalFoundries’ silicon-germanium (SiGe) technology at its facility in Burlington, Vermont. The additional capacity is intended to support Marvell’s growing requirements for optical networking products used […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 22, 2026 · 2 min
Alibaba Unveils China’s ‘Most Powerful’ AI Chip Ahead of U.S.-China Summit
Alibaba Group introduced its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip to date on Tuesday, as well as ambitious plans to train a massive next-generation AI model. The blitz reflects China’s accelerating push toward technological self-reliance, coming just days ahead of a closely watched summit between Chinese and U.S. leaders. Speaking at Alibaba Cloud’s annual flagship […]
Jon Swartz · Sep 22, 2026 · 3 min
TSMC Moves Ahead With Plans for Sub-1.4nm Manufacturing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has given the green light to an expansion of its manufacturing facilities, clearing the way for production technologies beyond its upcoming 1.4-nanometer manufacturing process. This comes just as a research note from investment firm Piper Sandler says Intel’s 14A process, also 1.4nm, is currently being evaluated by Amazon, Apple, AMD, […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 21, 2026 · 1 min
Samsung Backs Dutch AI Chip Startup With $231 Million Funding
Samsung Electronics is backing Dutch semiconductor startup Euclyd with a more than €200 million ($231 million) round of Series A to help the company develop a new type of processor architecture designed to make artificial intelligence inference more energy-efficient. Samsung was joined in leading the funding round by Somerset Capital Partners, EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 18, 2026 · 2 min
NVIDIA Shares Rise as CEO Jensen Huang Confirms Chip Sales Will Double by 2027
NVIDIA Corp. CEO Jensen Huang confirmed Thursday that the semiconductor giant expects chip sales to roughly double in 2027 from 2026. Speaking at a technology conference in Scotland, Huang reiterated the aggressive growth trajectory previously outlined to investors during the company’s August earnings call, where management characterized its 70% fiscal 2028 revenue projections as a […]
Jon Swartz · Sep 18, 2026 · 2 min
U.S. Chip Industry Faces 157,000-Worker Shortage as AI Fabs Expand
The U.S. semiconductor industry’s massive manufacturing expansion is running into a fundamental problem: finding enough skilled workers to operate the new factories. The industry could face a shortage of up to 157,000 workers by 2030, according to research from McKinsey and the SEMI Foundation. Just 3% of U.S. engineering graduates who take engineering jobs enter […]
James Maguire · Sep 18, 2026 · 2 min
Chinese Researchers Claim 100-Fold Increase in Next-Generation Memory Endurance
Even though memory has no moving parts, it is prone to wear and eventually erosion. The electrical current flowing through the chips eventually causes failure and brings the entire system down. In the case of flash memory, which is also built on DRAM memory technology, that means data loss. But now Chinese researchers have developed […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 18, 2026 · 2 min
Huawei Speeds AI Chip Roadmap as It Pushes to Challenge NVIDIA
Huawei Technologies is accelerating its AI chip development, moving the launch of its Ascend 960DT processor to the first quarter of 2027 as it works to reduce China’s dependence on NVIDIA hardware. The Ascend 960DT had been scheduled for later in 2027. Huawei also plans to release the Ascend 960PR in the third quarter of […]
James Maguire · Sep 17, 2026 · 3 min
Apple’s M5 Ultra Processor Outpaces AMD Threadripper
Early benchmark results of Apple’s upcoming M5 Ultra processor for workstations show an impressive appearance in the Geekbench 7 database, with the 36-core chip outperforming AMD’s 96-core Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX in both single- and multi-core testing. The results were found by Wccftech, which stated the results are notable because the M5 Ultra has fewer […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 17, 2026 · 1 min
SK hynix in Exploratory Talks With Intel for First U.S. Chip Manufacturing Presence: Report
South Korean memory chipmaker SK hynix is in preliminary talks with Intel Corp. that could result in the company manufacturing semiconductors in the United States for the first time. According to Reuters, citing sources familiar with the discussions, the companies are exploring multiple structures for potential partnership. One scenario involves SK hynix leasing space at […]
Jon Swartz · Sep 16, 2026 · 3 min
MediaTek’s New 2nm Chip Targets High-End Smartphones
MediaTek has unveiled Dimensity 9600 Pro, a flagship smartphone processor built to deliver gains in AI, gaming and power efficiency as the chipmaker pushes deeper into the premium handset market. The 9600 Pro is MediaTek’s first processor manufactured using TSMC’s 2-nanometer technology. Moving to the smaller manufacturing process allows chip designers to pack more computing […]
James Maguire · Sep 15, 2026 · 2 min
Silicon to the Rescue? How Better Chips Could Make AI More Affordable and More Controllable
The AI conversation has been dominated by software people talking to software people. That is starting to shift. Some of the most consequential questions about what AI will actually cost, what it will actually be trusted to do and how enterprises will actually keep it under control are being answered at the silicon layer, not […]
Alan Shimel · Sep 15, 2026 · 4 min
Semiconductor Revenue Surges 31% in Q2
Global semiconductor revenue jumped to a record $425 billion in the second quarter of 2026, driven by the massive memory demand, according to market research firm Omdia. Semiconductor revenue increased 31.4% sequentially in the quarter, surpassing the previous record quarterly growth rate of 29.2% set in the first quarter. The surge pushed semiconductor revenue for […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 15, 2026 · 2 min
Intel CEO: AI Power and Safety Concerns Can Be Resolved at Silicon Level
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told IT professionals attending a conference in Denver that advances in silicon will soon address many of the power consumption and security issues that are at the heart of the debate over potential risks and benefits of continuing to invest in artificial intelligence (AI). Appearing at a .conf26 event hosted by […]
Mike Vizard · Sep 15, 2026 · 2 min
AMD and Xanadu Partner for Quantum Classical Computing Platform
Xanadu and AMD have introduced an open-source software platform designed to address the challenge of moving data between quantum processors and classical computing hardware fast enough to support real-time workloads. Moving data between a traditional CPU and a quantum CPU has been a significant challenge and one not easily met. The problem is that CPUs […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 14, 2026 · 2 min
Analog Devices Buys Alif to Boost AI for Physical Devices
Analog Devices has agreed to acquire edge AI chipmaker Alif Semiconductor for $1.35 billion in cash, a deal that boosts the company’s ability to support AI running directly inside industrial equipment and other physical systems. Pleasanton, California-based Alif develops microcontrollers and fusion processors built for on-device AI, real-time sensor fusion and low-latency inference. Its chips […]
James Maguire · Sep 10, 2026 · 2 min
AI Data Center Buildout Could Reach $31.6T by 2050
Despite considerable resistance from residents near construction sites, the global artificial intelligence boom is projected to reach a total of $31.6 trillion by 2050, according to a new report from PwC, and possibly as much as $50 trillion. PwC’s Global Data Centre Outlook estimates that annual spending on data center infrastructure will increase from roughly […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 9, 2026 · 3 min
OpenAI Touts Chip Design With Lower-Cost Strategy
OpenAI is expanding its AI push into chip design, positioning its models as tools for semiconductor development while arguing that its technology can compete on price with open-source and open-weight alternatives. The company has already tested the approach on its own hardware. OpenAI used its AI models in the development of Jalapeño, an inference processor […]
James Maguire · Sep 9, 2026 · 2 min
IBM’s Nighthawk r2 Quantum Processor Delivers 25x Circuit Throughput Boost
IBM has introduced a new version of its Nighthawk quantum processor that it says can execute more than 100,000 quantum circuits per second, a 25-fold increase in circuit throughput compared with the company’s predecessor, the Heron processor. The Nighthawk r2 has 120 programmable qubits, the same as the first-generation Nighthawk yet the company says Nighthawk […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 9, 2026 · 2 min
Dell’s AI Server Boom Drives Record $95 Billion Backlog
Dell Technologies bet big and bet early on AI, and that bet is paying dividends in the form of record quarterly revenue and hardware backlog. For its fiscal 2027 second quarter, ended July 31, Dell reported $46.97 billion in revenue, up 58% from $29.78 billion a year earlier. Net income more than tripled to $4.13 […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 9, 2026 · 3 min
Memory Prices Surge as AI Demand Consumes the DRAM Market
The cost of PC memory has risen to unprecedented levels as the artificial intelligence boom continues to absorb huge amounts of the world’s DRAM production. The situation has become so severe that major technology companies and hyperscalers are reportedly locking up memory supplies well into 2028. That leaves very little leftover inventory for things like […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 8, 2026 · 3 min
Rent Out Your Idle PC for AI Inference Workloads
The growing battle for AI inference is opening up on a new front: the millions of computers, gaming PCs and small servers with unused GPUs already sitting in homes and small businesses, with several new companies launching using a rather familiar strategy. A startup from Abu Dhabi named Far Labs is preparing to launch a […]
Andy Patrizio · Sep 8, 2026 · 3 min
Arm Unveils Neoverse CSS N4 Platform, Expands AGI CPU Adoption
Arm has announced its next-generation Neoverse CSS N4 platform, bringing a massive upgrade in semi-custom compute designs to cloud and data center markets. Built on TSMC’s advanced N3P process, the new platform delivers up to 128 cores per die running at speeds up to 3.8 GHz, effectively doubling the core density of its predecessor. The […]
Jon Swartz · Sep 8, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Lands Amazon AI Chip Deal Worth Up to $60 Billion
Qualcomm has signed an AI infrastructure agreement with Amazon that could generate up to $60 billion in business for the chipmaker, giving Qualcomm an important foothold in the rapidly growing data center market. The two companies will develop multiple generations of custom silicon for Amazon Web Services, with an initial focus on AI inference. They […]
James Maguire · Sep 8, 2026 · 3 min
MIT Silicon Photonics Process Augurs a New Wave of Bendable and Transparent Devices
The world of semiconductors is having a bend it like Beckham moment. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have figured out how to make stiff silicon photonic chips flexible and transparent and produce them at scale. The breakthrough makes possible applications like discreet health monitors that conform to the body or lightweight, transparent […]
Frank Vizard · Sep 4, 2026 · 1 min
The Robot-Sized Hole in America’s China Chip Controls
Nvidia delivered another blockbuster earnings report this week, but one line in its outlook was easy to miss. The company said its guidance assumes no data center compute revenue from China. That is different from saying Nvidia expects no revenue from China. Far from it. At almost the same moment, The Wall Street Journal reported […]
Alan Shimel · Sep 1, 2026 · 7 min
NVIDIA’s $3.5 Billion MediaTek Deal Expands Its AI Infrastructure Reach
NVIDIA is investing $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chip designer MediaTek, a deal designed to keep NVIDIA technology central to AI data centers even as hyperscalers develop more of their own processors. For NVIDIA, the transaction is its largest direct investment outside the U.S. Alphabet also participated in the offering, although MediaTek did not disclose the […]
James Maguire · Aug 31, 2026 · 2 min
AI Accelerator Deployment Can Take Four Months or More
Enterprises are finding that deploying AI accelerators is no easy task. In a recent survey, nearly 62% of semiconductor buyers report that it takes at least four months to get from purchasing an accelerator system to generating their first production AI token. The finding comes from The Futurum Group’s “1H 2026 Data Center Semiconductor Decision […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 31, 2026 · 2 min
Trump Weighs Expanded Semiconductor Tariffs to Drive Reshoring, Raising Alarm Over U.S. AI Growth: Report
The Trump administration is weighing a sweeping expansion of semiconductor tariffs that could extend to laptops, gaming hardware, and data center servers. The preliminary proposal, as reported by POLITICO, aims to pressure tech giants into shifting manufacturing to U.S. soil, but it has sparked intense opposition from industry groups warning of severe economic fallout for […]
Jon Swartz · Aug 27, 2026 · 2 min
OpenAI Found a Crack in Nvidia’s AI Fortress
Nvidia has built one of the strongest competitive positions the technology industry has ever seen. It dominates the market for artificial intelligence accelerators, owns the CUDA software ecosystem that developers have spent years learning and has expanded beyond individual GPUs into networking, rack-scale systems and increasingly complete AI infrastructure. OpenAI’s first custom processor is not […]
Alan Shimel · Aug 27, 2026 · 8 min
From Grid to GPU, AI Power Is Going Solid-State
AI was expected to drive unprecedented demand for GPUs, accelerators and memory. It is now creating a second semiconductor market in the transformers, power supplies, cooling systems and electrical infrastructure surrounding those processors. The transformer does not usually receive much attention in discussions about artificial intelligence. It lacks the glamour of a new GPU, the […]
Alan Shimel · Aug 26, 2026 · 11 min
NVIDIA Moves Groq 3 LPX Into Full Production for Agentic AI Inference
NVIDIA has moved its Groq 3 LPX inference accelerator into full production, adding specialized hardware to its Vera Rubin platform as the chipmaker addresses a key performance problem facing agentic AI. The new accelerator is built to generate tokens at high speed after an AI model has processed its input. This capability is particularly important […]
James Maguire · Aug 25, 2026 · 2 min
Samsung and SK hynix Take Different Paths to Next-Gen AI Memory
Samsung and SK hynix are pursuing decidedly different strategies to overcome the bandwidth, power, and thermal limitations facing high bandwidth memory (HBM) as AI accelerators become increasingly powerful. At Hot Chips 2026, Samsung outlined a roadmap that moves from conventional HBM to custom HBM and ultimately to a more radical architecture called zHBM. SK hynix, […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 25, 2026 · 3 min
Gartner Forecasts Semiconductor Revenue to Surge 92% in 2026
Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach about $1.6 trillion in 2026 as the AI infrastructure buildout creates exceptional demand for memory and other data center components, according to Gartner. The research firm expects semiconductor revenue to increase 92% in 2026, from $809 billion in 2025. Gartner forecasts another sizable gain in 2027, when worldwide […]
James Maguire · Aug 25, 2026 · 2 min
IBM Unveils Dual-Architecture Mainframe Processor With Native Arm Support
IBM is developing a new processor that would bring Arm-native applications directly to its IBM Z mainframes and LinuxONE systems, allowing both Arm and IBM’s mainframe instructions to run side by side on the same processor cores. That would allow organizations to run Arm-native Linux applications alongside existing z/OS and Linux workloads on the same […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 25, 2026 · 2 min
IBM and Arm Unveil Dual-Architecture Chip Plan for Future Z and LinuxONE Mainframes
IBM and Arm have unveiled a processor design intended to bring Arm-native Linux software directly onto future IBM Z and LinuxONE systems. Well, this is different. At the Hot Chips conference, IBM and Arm revealed they’re working on an Arm chip in which each core can natively execute IBM Z or LinuxONE instructions and ARM […]
Steven Vaughan-Nichols · Aug 24, 2026 · 3 min
Japan Boosts Funding for Advanced Chip Manufacturing
Japan is preparing to provide another ¥150 billion ($944 million) to Rapidus, the country’s effort to establish a domestic source of cutting-edge logic chips and reduce its reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), according to a Bloomberg report. Rapidus, established in 2022, is developing an advanced semiconductor manufacturing operation in Chitose, Hokkaido. The company […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 24, 2026 · 2 min
Broadcom Eyes Up to $100 Billion in Financing for AI Chip Build-Out
Broadcom is in discussions to arrange a massive debt package to finance AI chips and infrastructure for Anthropic and other AI companies, an initiative that demonstrates how tech vendors are moving beyond sales and are now helping finance deals with customers. The proposed structure could include roughly $30 billion of junior debt and $60 billion […]
James Maguire · Aug 21, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Breaks 30% Client CPU Share in Q2
AMD captured a record share of the PC processor market in the second quarter of 2026, surpassing 30% of client CPU shipments for the first time as a sharp rebound in mobile processors and continued gains in servers offset a steep decline in desktop PCs. The overall x86 CPU market grew by more than 10% […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 21, 2026 · 3 min
Google Inks $12.2B Custom AI Chip Deal with Marvell, Spurring Tech Stock Shift
Marvell Technology Inc. shares spiked nearly 10% following a regulatory filing revealing that Google has secured the option to buy up to $12.2 billion in Marvell stock. The agreement signals a major expansion in their custom silicon partnership as tech titans rush to build cheaper, viable alternatives to NVIDIA Corp.’s dominant artificial intelligence (AI) processors. […]
Jon Swartz · Aug 20, 2026 · 2 min
Cerebras Debuts CS-4 System to Accelerate AI Inference
Cerebras Systems has unveiled the CS-4, a rack-scale computing system built to greatly speed up AI inference, as the chipmaker pushes to compete with NVIDIA and other providers of AI infrastructure. The CS-4 includes three of Cerebras’ new Wafer Scale Engine 3 Turbo, or WSE-3T, processors. These unusually large chips are designed to keep more […]
James Maguire · Aug 19, 2026 · 2 min
Qualcomm Targets $300 Laptop Market With New Snapdragon C Processor
Qualcomm is pushing into a new market segment with the Arm-based Snapdragon C, an entry-level processor designed for laptops priced from around $300 but offering longer battery life and modern computing capabilities at an entry-level price. The company first announced Snapdragon C in May, positioning it for students, families and small businesses that primarily need […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 17, 2026 · 2 min
Kioxia, SanDisk Unveil Faster QLC Flash Aimed at AI Infrastructure
Kioxia and SanDisk have introduced their 9th-generation 2Tb QLC 3D flash memory, combining an updated CMOS design with their existing memory-array technology. The new architecture is intended to increase storage performance while improving power efficiency and allowing NAND technology to scale more cost-effectively. It is designed, not surprisingly, to address the rapidly expanding storage requirements […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 14, 2026 · 1 min
AI Infrastructure Spending to Top $1T by 2030
Two market research reports have come to the same conclusion: the AI infrastructure market. He will soon surpass the $1 trillion mark. The only difference between the two is how far the market will go. One report by Dell’Oro Group says the worldwide data center IT semiconductors and components market is poised to reach $1.8 […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 14, 2026 · 3 min
Intel’s $36 Billion Second Chance: The Technology Is Working. Will the Business Follow?
One year ago, the United States government made an extraordinary bet on Intel. On Aug. 22, 2025, Washington agreed to invest $8.9 billion in the company, converting previously awarded CHIPS Act and Secure Enclave funding into an equity stake. The goal was bigger than rescuing another struggling American corporation. It was to preserve something the […]
Alan Shimel · Aug 12, 2026 · 9 min
AI-Driven Chip Shortage Triggers Washington Lobbying War as Apple Seeks Chinese Supplier Relief
An explosion in artificial intelligence (AI) development has ignited a severe global memory chip crunch, igniting an aggressive lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill as non-AI sectors scramble to secure critical components and protect failing supply pipelines. Driven by data centers vacuuming up massive volumes of high-bandwidth memory and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) to train advanced […]
Jon Swartz · Aug 10, 2026 · 2 min
Intel Unveils Starfire Space Processor to Bring AI Computing to Orbit
Intel has introduced the Starfire processor, a new system-on-chip (SoC) designed to deliver artificial intelligence and high-performance computing capabilities aboard satellites and spacecraft. The processor, developed for U.S. government and aerospace missions, combines an 18A-based CPU and neural processing unit (NPU) with an Intel 3-based Xe graphics processor in a Foveros 3D package. The design […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 10, 2026 · 2 min
Tesla, SpaceX Commit $16.8 Billion to Build Massive AI Chip Factory in Texas
Elon Musk is putting his money where his mouth is, unveiling plans for Tesla and SpaceX to invest $16.8 billion to build a massive semiconductor manufacturing complex in Texas, Called Terafab, the facility will be built in Grimes County, Texas just outside of Houston. When completed, it will be the largest building in the world […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 10, 2026 · 2 min
SK Hynix Invests $38 Billion to Expand AI Memory Chip Production
In a sign of the growing demand for memory chips driven by AI’s growth, SK Hynix plans to spend approximately $38 billion to build two semiconductor fabrication facilities in South Korea, a major expansion for the company. The company’s board approved investments totaling 54.3 trillion won, with 35.2 trillion won allocated to a new fabrication […]
James Maguire · Aug 7, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Acquires Taalas to Bolster AI Inference
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has agreed to acquire Toronto-based AI startup Taalas, snapping up the inference startup ahead of rivals Intel and NVIDIA. Taalas, founded in 2023 and emerging from stealth mode in 2024, is privately held, so terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2023, Taalas has taken an unconventional approach to […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 7, 2026 · 3 min
Anthropic Plans Custom AI Chip Strategy for Claude
Anthropic is assembling an in-house chip design team to develop custom processors for its Claude family of AI models, a key step in the company’s effort to reduce infrastructure costs and improve AI performance. The company plans to design future AI models alongside custom hardware rather than adapting software to commercially available processors. That approach […]
James Maguire · Aug 6, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Posts Record Q2 Revenue as AI Data Center Business More Than Doubles
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported record second-quarter revenue and sharply higher profit on Tuesday, driven by surging demand for its data center processors and AI accelerators. AMD reported revenue of $11.5 billion for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, up 50% from a year earlier, while GAAP net income climbed 163% to $2.3 billion. Diluted […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 6, 2026 · 2 min
NVIDIA Strives to Make GPU-Driven Storage an Industry Standard
At the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) conference this week, NVIDIA unveiled one of its most significant storage software initiatives to date, announcing that it is open-sourcing its cuFile APIs and the underlying storage software stack that powers GPUDirect Storage. The move is designed to remove one of the biggest bottlenecks facing AI infrastructure: […]
Andy Patrizio · Aug 5, 2026 · 3 min
HP, Asus and Acer Turn to Chinese Memory Supplier as AI Boom Tightens DRAM Market
The AI infrastructure buildout is reshaping another corner of the semiconductor industry, with reports indicating that HP, Asus and Acer have begun using limited quantities of DRAM from China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) in selected notebook computers. The move is yet another sign of the growing strain that AI investment is placing on the global […]
James Maguire · Aug 5, 2026 · 2 min
Beyond the Die: The Definitive Guide to Advanced Packaging in the AI Era
For decades, semiconductor progress was told through the story of the chip itself. That story still matters — but it no longer explains how the most advanced AI systems get faster. The most consequential change is now happening around the die as much as inside it. In Beyond the Die: The Definitive Guide to Advanced […]
Alan Shimel · Aug 4, 2026 · 1 min
Commerce Department Plans $874 Million for Seven Semiconductor R&D Projects
The US Department of Commerce plans to provide up to $874 million in CHIPS and Science Act incentives to seven semiconductor companies developing technologies for AI infrastructure, extending the government’s support for domestic semiconductor research and the US compute supply chain. The funding, announced through letters of intent, still requires additional review before final awards […]
James Maguire · Jul 31, 2026 · 3 min
GlobalFoundries Lands $300 Million in CHIPS Funding
GlobalFoundries has secured a planned $300 million award from the U.S. Department of Commerce to accelerate research and development of silicon photonics technology. The move is aimed at strengthening domestic semiconductor capabilities and addressing one of the biggest bottlenecks in next-generation artificial intelligence infrastructure, namely network throughput. The funding was announced Wednesday as a letter […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 31, 2026 · 2 min
Samsung Lands $200 Billion Broadcom AI Chip Partnership in Major Foundry Win
Samsung Electronics and Broadcom have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand a strategic semiconductor partnership that the companies estimate will be worth more than $200 billion through 2030. The partnership is expected to support Broadcom’s growing portfolio of custom artificial intelligence processors and strengthen Samsung’s position in the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market. The […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 28, 2026 · 1 min
Intel to Restore Hyper-Threading in Future Xeon Chips
Intel is reversing course on one of its most significant recent processor design decisions, bringing back Hyper-Threading to future versions of the Xeon processor. Hyper-Threading is a technology that allows a processor core to execute two threads at once, sort of. While a Hyper-Threaded core appears as two logical processors to the system, they don’t […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 27, 2026 · 2 min
Moore’s Law Didn’t End. It Changed Direction
IBM’s “0.7nm chip” is part marketing sleight of hand and part genuine semiconductor breakthrough. Ignore the decimal point. Nanostack—and the decision to build silicon upward—is the real story. Let’s get the marketing out of the way first. IBM says it has introduced the world’s first “sub-1 nanometer chip technology.” More specifically, the company calls this […]
Alan Shimel · Jul 24, 2026 · 9 min
Intel Posts Strong AI-Driven Quarter as Data Center Demand Fuels Growth
Intel reported a stronger-than-expected second quarter as accelerating investment in AI infrastructure lifted demand for its processors, while the company increased manufacturing spending and reaffirmed its strategy to regain semiconductor leadership. The chipmaker posted adjusted earnings of 42 cents per share on revenue of $16.1 billion, comfortably exceeding analyst expectations of roughly 21 to 22 […]
James Maguire · Jul 24, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Challenges NVIDIA’s Dominance with New AI Hardware, Billion-Dollar Partnerships
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is launching a powerful new lineup of artificial intelligence (AI) data center hardware on Thursday, directly targeting market leader NVIDIA Corp. The news, unveiled at an industry event in San Francisco, centers around AMD’s efforts to capture market share in both AI training and inference, the computational work behind processing queries […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 23, 2026 · 2 min
Google Reportedly Developing AI Chip for Gemini
Google is reportedly developing a new custom AI chip designed specifically to run its Gemini family of artificial intelligence models more efficiently, marking the latest in a series of custom chips optimized for AI processing. The chip, internally codenamed “Frozen v2,” is being engineered to accelerate AI inference in a very unique manner. According to […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 23, 2026 · 2 min
Agentic AI Shift Driving Data Center Chip Market Toward $1.2 Trillion by 2030: Futurum Report
The global data center semiconductor market is on track to expand more than fivefold, reaching $1.2 trillion by 2030 as artificial intelligence (AI) hardware demand shifts decisively from model training to agentic inference. According to a five-year forecast from tech research firm The Futurum Group, revenue in the sector hit $241 billion in 2025, a […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 23, 2026 · 2 min
Samsung Negotiates Multimillion-Euro Stake in Mistral AI at $22.8 Billion Valuation
Samsung Electronics is in advanced talks to make a massive financial bet on Europe’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Mistral AI, signaling a critical shift in how global semiconductor leaders compete for dominance in the AI hardware supply chain. According to a report from The Financial Times, South Korea’s Samsung is negotiating an investment of […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 22, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Signs AI Chip and Investment Deal with Anthropic Worth Tens of Billions
Advanced Micro Devices has secured one of its largest AI infrastructure agreements to date, signing a deal in which Anthropic will deploy up to 2 gigawatts of AMD AI infrastructure while AMD commits to invest as much as $5 billion in the AI company. The agreement strengthens AMD’s challenge to NVIDIA in the market for […]
James Maguire · Jul 22, 2026 · 2 min
NVIDIA Vera CPU Tops AMD and Intel in Benchmarks
Cloud inference provider DeepInfra claims NVIDIA’s upcoming Vera CPU significantly outperformed competing processors from AMD and Intel in production-scale AI performance testing. Rather than using generic benchmarks, which don’t often reflect real-world usage, DeepInfra used its own production AI infrastructure for testing. It showed the Arm-based Vera CPU delivered up to 2.2 times faster agent […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 21, 2026 · 2 min
AMD Challenges NVIDIA’s AI Monopoly as Microsoft Adopts New Helios System for Azure
AMD is taking the fight to NVIDIA Corp. to loosen its ironclad grip on the multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI) hardware market. Culminating a decade-long corporate comeback, AMD said Monday that Microsoft Corp. will deploy its highly anticipated Helios rack-scale AI system. Microsoft will integrate Helios into its Azure cloud platform to power frontier model inference, […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 20, 2026 · 2 min
TSMC Crushes Q2 Earnings Expectations, Raises Outlook
Just days after Samsung’s record-breaking second-quarter earnings, history repeated itself when Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reported record second-quarter earnings on the chipmaker’s central role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer posted second-quarter revenue of NT$1.27 trillion (US$40.2 billion), a 36% increase from Q2 of 2025. Net income […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 16, 2026 · 2 min
Arteris, Arm Partner for Secure Chip Development
Semiconductor IP company Arteris is expanding its longstanding partnership with Arm Holdings to provide advanced hardware security verification across a broader range of Arm’s CPU portfolio. With so many technologies, the development cycle is focused on getting it running, making it run faster and then securing it, in that order. Security has a tendency to […]
Andy Patrizio · Jul 16, 2026 · 2 min
Nokia’s AI-RAN Platform Puts a Number on the Software-Defined RAN Bet
Nokia and NVIDIA launch an AI-RAN platform targeting 2x spectral efficiency by 2028 — here’s how the claims compare with what’s shipping today.
Nick Patience · Jul 16, 2026 · 7 min
China’s Chip Ambitions Rise as CXMT Launches $10 Billion IPO
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. is launching a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) on Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR Board to raise nearly $10 billion, one of the largest in Asian history and a crucial test of investor appetite for China’s burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. The Hefei-based DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) champion has […]
Jon Swartz · Jul 15, 2026 · 2 min