ByteDance is Microsoft’s biggest AI customer, even as Washington treats Chinese AI as a threat
ByteDance is Microsoft’s biggest AI customer, even as Washington treats Chinese AI as a threat

ByteDance has generally been Microsoft’s single biggest AI customer in recent years, and it is on track to spend more than $1bn a year on Microsoft’s AI and cloud services, Bloomberg reports. The striking part is what the TikTok owner is mostly buying:…

Intel’s fab roadmap examined — Arizona, Ohio, Ireland, and the two deadlines deciding 14A process node

This roadmap provides an in-depth analysis of Intel’s current plans for its chip production capacity.

The US is paying an AI startup $500M to break China’s grip on chip materials
The US is paying an AI startup $500M to break China’s grip on chip materials

The US government has just become a shareholder in an AI startup, in exchange for a bet that artificial intelligence can break China’s hold on the materials inside every chip factory. The Department of Commerce has awarded SandboxAQ $500mn under the CH…

Odyssey took Nvidia’s money. Now it’s raised $310M betting on Amazon and AMD
Odyssey took Nvidia’s money. Now it’s raised $310M betting on Amazon and AMD

Odyssey, an AI lab building real-time ‘world models’, has raised $310mn at a $1.45bn valuation. The more telling number is whose names are on the round. The Series B was led by Natural Capital, with Amazon, AMD Ventures, Google’s GV, EQT and the CIA-li…

Intel’s performance-enhanced 18A-P process enters risk production — drop-in 18A upgrade promises 9% performance improvement at iso-power, cuts thermal resistance by 40%

Intel’s enhanced 18A-P has entered risk production, laying the groundwork to ramp the node into full production in the coming months.

Nvidia is backing a startup that turns its own GPUs into a commodity
Nvidia is backing a startup that turns its own GPUs into a commodity

Hydra Host has raised $100m to build the plumbing of the AI boom, and one of its new backers is the company whose chips it is trying to turn into a commodity: Nvidia. The Series A was led by Kindred Ventures, with Nvidia joining alongside ARK Invest, C…

Qualcomm’s CEO says AI agents will be the new app, and 40 new devices are coming
Qualcomm’s CEO says AI agents will be the new app, and 40 new devices are coming

Qualcomm’s chief executive thinks the app as you know it is on the way out, and that the phone in your pocket is about to lose its place at the centre of your digital life. ‘Agents are going to be the new app,’ Cristiano Amon told CNBC’s The Tech Downl…

TSMC says panel packaging won’t replace CoWoS anytime soon for the largest future AI processors — wafer-level tech can scale to 58 massive dies in one package

TSMC is exploring panel-level packaging and is working on its CoPoS technology, but the company’s Kevin Zhang says wafer-level packaging technologies is considerably more advanced than panel-level packaging.

Kazakhstan signs a $10bn AI deal with Nvidia-backed Firebird to build ‘Data Center Valley’
Kazakhstan signs a $10bn AI deal with Nvidia-backed Firebird to build ‘Data Center Valley’

The Kazakhstan AI deal is signed. Kazakhstan has agreed a set of accords with Firebird, a US startup backed by Nvidia, to build artificial-intelligence data centres that could draw as much as $10bn in investment, as the oil-and-gas producer tries to re…