News/AI Chips
Intel CEO admits company no longer a top 10 semiconductor player
Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has bluntly told employees that the company is no longer among the top 10 semiconductor companies globally, marking a stark acknowledgment of the chipmaker's declining position in an industry it once dominated. The candid assessment comes as Intel faces mounting pressure from rivals like Nvidia, AMD, and Apple, while grappling with layoffs and concerns about its upcoming manufacturing technology. What they're saying: Tan delivered the sobering assessment during a video broadcast to Intel employees worldwide, pulling no punches about the company's current standing. "Twenty, 30 years ago, we are really the leader," he said. "Now...
read Jul 10, 2025Amazon builds custom liquid cooling for Nvidia’s (literally) hottest AI chips
Amazon Web Services has developed its own in-house liquid cooling solution called In-Row Heat Exchangers (IHRX) to address the cooling requirements of Nvidia's next-generation AI chips, particularly the Blackwell series. The move allows Amazon to upgrade its existing data center infrastructure without the time and cost of building new facilities, positioning the company to deploy more advanced AI chips while maintaining its competitive edge in cloud computing. What you should know: Nvidia's latest AI chips generate significantly more heat than previous generations, requiring liquid cooling rather than traditional air cooling systems. The Blackwell chips and newer models run so hot...
read Jul 10, 2025Huawei targets Middle East and Asia for AI chips despite 200K production cap
Huawei Technologies is actively seeking customers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia for its AI chips, marking an ambitious attempt to challenge Nvidia's dominance in international markets despite significant manufacturing constraints. The Chinese tech giant is targeting regions where governments have already committed to purchasing millions of Nvidia and AMD chips, positioning itself as an alternative supplier in the rapidly growing AI infrastructure market. What you should know: Huawei has approached potential customers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand about purchasing its older-generation Ascend 910B processors. The outreach represents Huawei's strategy to establish a foothold in markets currently...
read Jul 10, 2025Groq seeks $500M at $6B valuation for Saudi AI chip deal
U.S. semiconductor startup Groq is in talks with investors to raise between $300 million and $500 million at a $6 billion post-investment valuation, according to The Information. The funding round would more than double the company's previous $2.8 billion valuation from August 2024 and help fulfill a major contract with Saudi Arabia that could generate $500 million in revenue this year. What you should know: Groq specializes in AI inference chips designed to optimize speed and execute commands from pre-trained AI models, positioning itself as a key player in the AI hardware race. The company secured a $1.5 billion commitment...
read Jul 9, 2025Hats off! Nvidia becomes first company to hit $4T market cap
Nvidia hit a $4 trillion market cap on Wednesday, becoming the first company ever to reach this milestone. The chipmaker's stock jumped more than 2% as investors continue betting on the company's dominance in the generative AI hardware market, cementing its position as the world's most valuable company ahead of Microsoft and Apple. The big picture: Nvidia's meteoric rise reflects the explosive demand for AI infrastructure since ChatGPT's launch in late 2022, with the company establishing itself as the decisive leader in graphics processing units that power large language models. Graphics processing units (GPUs) are specialized computer chips originally designed...
read Jul 9, 2025South Korea builds out $19.9M micro data centers for domestic AI chips
South Korea's government is launching a KRW27.3 billion ($19.9 million) initiative to build micro data centers powered by domestically manufactured AI chips, targeting small and medium-sized enterprises, hospitals, and public institutions across non-metropolitan regions. The project aims to reduce dependence on US firms like Nvidia while providing local AI chipmakers such as Furiosa AI and Rebellions with real-world deployment opportunities to prove their technology in commercial settings. What you should know: The Ministry of Science and ICT will lead the construction of container-based data centers in regional areas from 2025 through 2029. These modular micro data centers integrate compute, storage,...
read Jul 9, 2025IBM unveils Power11 chips for faster AI inference with 30-second downtime
IBM has launched its new Power11 chips and servers, marking the company's first major update to its Power processor line since 2020. The systems are designed to simplify AI deployment for businesses while offering enhanced power efficiency, security, and reliability compared to competitors like Intel and AMD. What you should know: The Power11 systems target specialized sectors including financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare with integrated hardware and software packages. Available starting July 25, the systems promise virtually no planned downtime for software updates and average just over 30 seconds of unplanned downtime annually. The servers can detect and respond to...
read Jul 9, 2025Samsung profits plummet 56%, though stock is up, as company struggles to win Nvidia AI chip deals
Samsung Electronics expects second-quarter operating profits to plummet 56% to 4.6 trillion won as the South Korean tech giant struggles to capture demand from AI chip leader Nvidia. The disappointing forecast, which fell short of analyst expectations by nearly 27%, highlights Samsung's difficulty competing with rivals like SK Hynix and Micron in the crucial high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chip market that powers AI applications. What you should know: Samsung's projected earnings represent a significant miss compared to analyst forecasts and reflect deeper structural challenges in the AI chip supply chain. Operating profit is expected to drop to 4.6 trillion won ($3.36...
read Jun 27, 2025Microsoft’s Maia AI chip delayed to 2026 amid design challenges
Microsoft's next-generation Maia AI chip, code-named Braga, has been delayed by at least six months, pushing mass production from 2025 to 2026, according to The Information. The delay highlights the challenges tech giants face in developing custom AI processors to reduce their dependence on Nvidia's expensive chips, while competitors like Google and Amazon continue to advance their own chip development programs. What you should know: The Braga chip was intended for Microsoft's data centers this year but faces significant performance and production hurdles. When it eventually launches, the chip is expected to fall "well short of the performance of Nvidia's...
read Jun 24, 2025Huawei’s CloudMatrix-Infer outpaces Nvidia H100 with 384 AI chips
Huawei unveiled CloudMatrix-Infer, a massive AI inference system featuring 384 Ascend 910C NPUs and 192 Kunpeng CPUs interconnected through a 2.8Tbps Unified Bus architecture. The system represents Huawei's most ambitious challenge to Nvidia's AI infrastructure dominance, offering superior throughput performance while demonstrating the company's complete vertical AI stack from silicon to software. What you should know: CloudMatrix-Infer delivers impressive performance metrics that outpace Nvidia's H100 chips on similar workloads. The system achieves 6,688 tokens/sec prefill and 1,943 decode/sec per NPU, surpassing Nvidia H100 performance on comparable tasks. Huawei compensates for individual chip limitations by networking five times more processors than...
read Jun 23, 2025Snowcap raises $23M for superconducting AI chips promising 25x efficiency gains
Snowcap Compute has raised $23 million to develop superconducting AI chips that could dramatically outperform current systems while consuming far less electricity. The startup claims its technology will be 25 times more efficient than today's best chips in performance per watt, even after accounting for the energy needed to keep the superconducting materials at extremely cold temperatures. The big picture: As AI systems demand increasingly massive amounts of power—with Nvidia's upcoming "Rubin Ultra" server expected to consume 600 kilowatts—the industry is desperately seeking alternatives to conventional silicon chips that are hitting physical limits. How it works: Superconductors are materials that...
read Jun 19, 2025White House AI czar: China now just 2 years behind US chip design
White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks warned that China has become highly skilled at circumventing US semiconductor export controls and is now only about two years behind American chip design capabilities. His comments highlight growing concerns about the effectiveness of current trade restrictions and China's rapid technological advancement despite ongoing sanctions. What you should know: Sacks pointed to specific examples demonstrating China's ability to work around US restrictions and continue advancing its technology sector. Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecommunications giant hit with extensive US export controls, is rapidly closing the gap with international competitors. DeepSeek's breakthrough AI model...
read Jun 19, 2025Apple plans AI-powered chip design tools to superpower productivity
Apple is exploring the use of generative artificial intelligence to accelerate the design of its custom chips, according to remarks from its senior vice president of hardware technologies, Johny Srouji. The move signals Apple's commitment to leveraging cutting-edge tools to maintain its competitive edge in chip development, as the company continues expanding its custom silicon across its entire product lineup. What you should know: Srouji outlined Apple's interest in AI-powered chip design during a speech in Belgium, where he was receiving an award from Imec, a leading semiconductor research organization.• "Generative AI techniques have a high potential in getting more...
read Jun 18, 2025MIT breakthrough makes gallium nitride chips affordable for everyday electronics
MIT researchers have developed a breakthrough fabrication process that integrates high-performance gallium nitride transistors onto standard silicon chips using a low-cost, scalable method compatible with existing semiconductor foundries. This innovation could significantly improve the speed and energy efficiency of electronics ranging from smartphones to quantum computers by combining the best properties of both materials without the prohibitive costs typically associated with gallium nitride integration. Why this matters: Gallium nitride is the second most widely used semiconductor after silicon, but its high cost and specialized integration requirements have limited commercial adoption despite superior performance characteristics for high-speed communications and power electronics....
read Jun 13, 2025US limits Huawei AI chip production to 200K units despite $25B investment
U.S. Commerce officials revealed that China's Huawei Technologies can produce no more than 200,000 advanced AI chips in 2025, despite the company's higher demand and ambitious expansion plans. This production cap reflects the ongoing impact of U.S. export controls, even as officials warn that China is rapidly closing the technological gap with American AI chip capabilities. The big picture: U.S. export restrictions since 2019 have successfully limited Huawei's AI chip production capacity, but China's massive investments in semiconductor technology are accelerating its ability to compete with American companies like Nvidia. What you should know: Huawei's Ascend 910C chips represent China's...
read Jun 12, 2025China’s $10B+ bet to build AI chips faces 4 major hurdles
U.S. export controls have effectively cut China off from the world's most advanced artificial intelligence chips, forcing Beijing to build an entire domestic semiconductor ecosystem from scratch. This isn't simply about replacing a few high-end processors—it requires mastering four interconnected technological domains that took decades for the West to develop. The challenge extends far beyond chip design. U.S. restrictions target every link in the semiconductor supply chain, from the specialized manufacturing equipment needed to produce chips to the memory components that make them functional. China has mobilized tens of billions of dollars to bridge these gaps, achieving some breakthroughs through...
read Jun 11, 2025Mistral AI launches cloud platform with 18K Nvidia chips
Mistral AI, the French artificial intelligence startup, has announced a sweeping expansion into AI infrastructure with Mistral Compute, a comprehensive platform built in partnership with Nvidia to compete directly with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. The Paris-based company simultaneously unveiled new reasoning models called Magistral that rival OpenAI's most advanced systems, marking a strategic shift from purely developing AI models to controlling the entire technology stack while positioning itself as Europe's answer to American cloud computing dominance. The big picture: Mistral's dual announcement signals Europe's most ambitious challenge yet to American AI infrastructure dominance, combining sovereign cloud...
read Jun 11, 2025Jupiter supercomputer puts Europe in global AI computing race
Nvidia and the Julich Supercomputing Centre have launched Jupiter, Europe's fastest supercomputer, powered by nearly 24,000 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. The system marks Europe's entry into exascale computing, delivering over one quintillion calculations per second while positioning the continent as a major player in AI research and scientific discovery. What you should know: Jupiter represents a significant leap forward in European high-performance computing capabilities and energy efficiency. The supercomputer delivers more than twice the performance of Europe's next-fastest system and ranks among the top five globally on the latest TOP500 list. Built on Nvidia's GH200 Grace Hopper platform and...
read Jun 11, 2025Qualcomm acquires Alphawave Semi for $2.4B to boost data center ambitions
Qualcomm has announced plans to acquire data center chip specialist Alphawave Semi for $2.4 billion, marking a significant expansion of its data center ambitions. The acquisition complements Qualcomm's recent re-entry into the custom CPU market and positions the company to compete more aggressively in AI infrastructure, following its earlier deals with Nvidia and Saudi AI firm Humain. The big picture: Qualcomm is making a serious push into the data center market after years of focusing on mobile chips, viewing it as the next frontier for diversification similar to its successful expansion into PCs. What you should know: Alphawave Semi's high-speed...
read Jun 10, 2025TSMC revenue surges 40% as companies stockpile AI chips
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. reported a 40% surge in May revenue to NT$320.5 billion ($10.7 billion), driven by companies stockpiling chips amid rising trade uncertainties. The strong performance from the world's leading contract chipmaker—which produces semiconductors for Nvidia and Apple—signals continued resilience in AI-driven demand despite broader geopolitical tensions affecting the tech supply chain. What you should know: TSMC's May revenue growth slightly decelerated from April's 48% increase but still exceeded analyst expectations for the quarter.• The May figure represents an 8.3% month-over-month decline from April, suggesting some normalization after the previous month's exceptional performance.• Analysts on average expect a...
read Jun 10, 2025Huawei CEO admits chips lag US despite $25B annual R&D spend
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has publicly acknowledged that the company's chips lag one generation behind U.S. competitors, marking the first official comments from Huawei leadership about their advanced chip manufacturing capabilities since U.S. export controls began in 2019. Despite this technological gap, Ren revealed that Huawei is deploying alternative strategies like cluster computing and mathematical optimization to bridge performance differences, while investing $25 billion annually in research and development. What you should know: Huawei is compensating for its chip technology deficit through innovative workaround solutions rather than direct competition. The company uses "mathematics to supplement physics, non-Moore's law to supplement...
read Jun 5, 2025Network performance drives AI success, new benchmark reveals
The evolution of AI system performance is increasingly defined by networking technologies rather than just raw chip power. MLCommons' latest MLPerf Training benchmark (round 5.0) reveals how connectivity between chips has become a critical factor as AI systems scale to unprecedented sizes. This shift highlights a growing competitive landscape where network configuration and communication algorithms play an increasingly decisive role in AI training speed and efficiency. The big picture: As AI systems scale to thousands of interconnected chips, network configuration has become just as crucial as the chips themselves for achieving peak performance. The latest MLPerf Training benchmark saw systems...
read May 31, 2025AI chip startup Cerebras outperforms NVIDIA’s Blackwell in Llama 4 test
Cerebras has achieved a groundbreaking milestone in AI inference performance, establishing a new world record for processing speed with Meta's flagship large language model. By delivering over 2,500 tokens per second on the massive 400B parameter Llama 4 Maverick model, Cerebras has demonstrated that specialized AI hardware can significantly outpace even the most advanced GPU solutions, reshaping performance expectations for enterprise AI deployments. The big picture: Cerebras has set a world record for LLM inference speed, achieving over 2,500 tokens per second with Meta's 400B parameter Llama 4 Maverick model. Independent benchmark firm Artificial Analysis measured Cerebras at 2,522 tokens...
read May 23, 2025Intel’s 48GB dual-chip GPU beast may arrive soon
Intel's potential dual-GPU graphics card represents a notable revival of multi-chip consumer hardware, pointing to a possible new direction for AI development hardware that sits between consumer and professional-grade equipment. The reported 48GB memory configuration suggests Intel and its partners may be exploring ways to deliver higher memory capacity in more affordable packages for AI workloads and content creation, though important questions about performance, pricing, and market positioning remain unanswered. The big picture: A mysterious Intel graphics card combining two Arc B580 GPUs with a substantial 48GB of memory has reportedly entered development through an unnamed board partner. This design...
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