Nvidia is investing $5 billion in Intel via a common stock purchase at $23.28 per share, which translates to about a 4 percent stake. The companies plan to collaborate across multiple projects, developing custom data center and PC products to accelerate applications and workloads across the hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets. Nvidia’s NVLink will be used to connect the architectures, integrating Nvidia’s GPUs with Intel’s CPU technologies. For data centers, Intel will customize x86 CPUs that Nvidia can integrate into its AI platforms. Intel also plans to build x86 SOCs that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets for PCs. Continue reading Nvidia Invests $5 Billion in Intel with Plans for AI Infrastructure

Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia reported its sales were $46.7 billion for the most recent quarter, marking 56 percent growth over the same period last year and up 6 percent sequentially. Profit rose more than 59 percent to $26.42 billion. The results, which surpassed estimates, reassured global analysts and investors that AI infrastructure spending remains strong, easing — though not erasing — anxieties about an AI bubble. This summer, the chipmaker became the first company to exceed a market cap of $4 trillion, and it is considered a global barometer for the overall health of the artificial intelligence sector. Continue reading Nvidia Announces Continued Growth, $26 Billion in Q2 Profit

Tesla has selected Samsung to manufacture its new A16 system-on-a-chip, developed by the carmaker for its next-generation artificial intelligence applications, including for autonomous driving, Optimus robots and AI data centers. The multiyear deal is reportedly worth $16.5 billion to Samsung and represents a major win for its foundry division. The South Korean company’s soon-to-open plant in Taylor, Texas will focus on making Tesla’s new AI6 chip, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Samsung began producing Tesla’s A14 chip in 2023, but the A15 contract went to TSMC, which is in the testing phase using its 3nm N3P process. Continue reading Samsung Inks $16.5 Billion Deal to Produce Tesla’s A16 Chip

Semiconductor giant Qualcomm is seeking to expand its AI tech portfolio with an agreement to purchase custom silicon firm Alphawave IP Group (“Alphawave Semi”) in a deal valued at roughly $2.4 billion. UK-based Alphawave makes chips used in artificial intelligence and data centers. The deal follows months of talks between the San Diego-based Qualcomm and Alphawave, which was identified as an acquisition target in April. “AI inferencing growth is driving demand for Qualcomm’s high-performance energy-efficient compute solutions and this acquisition provides key assets for our expansion into data centers,” Qualcomm explained in disclosing the deal. Continue reading Qualcomm Strikes Deal to Acquire Alphawave for $2.4 Billion

Qualcomm has made no secret of its belief that smart glasses are going to be a significant future product, and during the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California this week, the chipmaker shared its vision for the sector, demonstrating eyewear using its new Snapdragon processor. According to the company, the AR1+ Gen 1 is 26 percent smaller than earlier chips and runs artificial intelligence tools independent of Internet or smartphone connectivity. Qualcomm’s goal is to help smart glasses become “fully independent devices” that can do processing and complete agentic tasks with or without connectivity. Continue reading Qualcomm Chip Could Be a ‘Breakthrough’ for Smart Glasses

China’s Huawei Technologies is getting ready to test its newest AI processor, which the company believes is powerful enough to replace high-end chips from U.S. rival Nvidia, whose top-tier products are prohibited from export to China due to a trade embargo. Huawei’s AI ambitions suggest a superpower competition over semiconductors gearing up despite the U.S. government’s attempt to stymie Beijing. Huawei expects to receive its first samples of its latest AI processor, the Ascend 910D, as early as next month, and is reportedly casting about for tech firms capable of testing it out. Continue reading Huawei’s Processor Could Chip Away at Nvidia Market Share

Semiconductor giant Intel has reached a tentative agreement with Taiwan’s TSMC and some U.S. firms to create a joint venture that would assume operating responsibility for Intel’s chip fabrication plants here. TSMC will reportedly hold a 20 percent stake in the JV, while Intel and the other investors would control the remaining 80 percent. This specific JV is limited to Intel’s foundry unit, which posted a 2024 operating loss of $13.4 billion in 2024 and is not expected to break even until 2027. New Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said at last week’s Intel Vision conference that he will spin off all non-core units. Continue reading TSMC Reportedly Ready for Joint Venture with Intel Foundries

China’s Ant Group is using local semiconductors to train AI at a cost that is 20 percent less than companies typically spend, according to reports. Ant used domestic chips — from companies including Alibaba, an investor in Ant, and Huawei — to launch a unique Mixture of Experts (MoE) training approach that produced results commensurate to training with Nvidia H800 chips. Ant is the latest Chinese company to focus on low cost training, joining a competition triggered by DeepSeek, which in January announced it could build AI comparable to the models released by U.S. companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google for billions less. Continue reading Ant Group Stacks Chips to Reduce Development Costs for AI

Meta Platforms has reportedly begun “a small deployment” of its first in-house chip designed for AI training. The accelerator chip is engineered around the open-standard RISC-V architecture. TSMC produced the working samples now being tested. The goal is to create purpose-specific chips that are more efficient than Nvidia’s general purpose GPUs, enjoying the cost-savings that would come with wide use and reducing reliance on outside chip suppliers in a tight market. If the tests go well, Meta plans to scale up production for expanded use by 2026. Details of the new chip’s specifications remain unknown at this time. Continue reading Meta Tests New AI Accelerator Chip Designed with Broadcom

Taiwan semiconductor firm TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, has vowed to add another $100 billion to its existing $65 billion plan to expand its U.S. manufacturing base. The total allocation — $165 billion over the next four years — sees TSMC further building out its advanced semiconductor fabrication complex in Phoenix, Arizona, which has been producing at volume since late 2024. The expansion plays a key role in strengthening the U.S. computer ecosystem by increasing U.S. production of advanced semiconductors, TSMC says, adding that it will “complete the domestic AI supply chain” with advanced packaging investments. Continue reading TSMC Will Boost Its Factory Build-Out in U.S. by $100 Billion

Microsoft has created a quantum computing chip, Majorana 1, that relies on what it says is a “new state of matter” — one that exists beyond the primary liquid, solid, gas states that have underpinned science since Ancient Greece. Research into this fourth physical existence, called a “topological state,” earned three theoretical physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics in October. Unlike solids, liquids or gases, a topological state is not defined locally by how its particles are arranged, but by how their quantum wavefunction behaves — wrapping around itself globally, across the entire material. Continue reading Microsoft Calls New Topoconductor a Quantum Breakthrough

OpenAI is getting close to finalizing its first custom chip design, according to an exclusive report from Reuters that emphasizes the Microsoft-backed AI giant’s goal of reducing its dependency on Nvidia chips. The blueprint for the first-generation OpenAI chip could be finalized as soon as the next few months and sent to Taiwan’s TSMC for fabrication, which will take about six months — “unless OpenAI pays substantially more for expedited manufacturing” — according to the report. Even by usual standards, the training-focused chip is already on a fast track to deployment. Continue reading OpenAI In-House Chip Could Be Ready for Testing This Year

Ayar Labs, which develops optical interconnect chips for large-scale AI workloads, has secured $155 million in financing, including from competing processor companies Nvidia, Intel and AMD. Founded in 2017, the Silicon Valley-based company is pursuing a different processing path — combining photonic elements with electronic circuits on each chip for what it says provides faster, more efficient processing for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. “This brings the company’s total funding to $370 million and raises the company’s valuation to above $1 billion,” Ayar notes, adding that the new funding allows the company to scale its optical I/O tech. Continue reading Nvidia, Intel and AMD Invest in AI Chiplet Developer Ayar Labs

Manufacturers that make Arm chips license tech from British developer Arm Holdings, with the option of licensing Arm’s instruction set to build proprietary CPU designs or licensing one of Arm’s Cortex CPU designs. Amid a legal dispute that started two years ago over Qualcomm’s $1.4 billion acquisition of silicon design firm Nuvia, Arm has given its longtime partner Qualcomm a 60-day notice of its license cancellation. If the two companies do not come to an agreement in that time, Qualcomm will have to cease manufacturing Arm chips, which could have a significant impact on the global supply chain, Qualcomm’s revenue, and smartphone makers that use Qualcomm chips. Continue reading Arm Cancels Qualcomm Architecture License in Legal Dispute

Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which the company says has “the world’s fastest mobile CPU,” a custom version of the second generation Qualcomm Oryon. The platform is purpose-built to power on-device generative AI, “built to handle the complexities of multi-modal AI seamlessly while prioritizing privacy,” per Qualcomm. Smartphone brands and OEMs including Asus, Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, Opposite, RealMe, Samsung, Vivo and Xiaomi are onboard to launch devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, starting before the end of the year, according to Qualcomm’s announcement. Continue reading Qualcomm Says Snapdragon 8 Elite Has ‘Fastest Mobile CPU’