A startup betting on a different material for AI’s optics problem just raised $80mn from the people who build the hardware
A startup betting on a different material for AI’s optics problem just raised $80mn from the people who build the hardware

AI’s next bottleneck is not the chips. It is the wiring between them. As clusters grow to hundreds of thousands of GPUs, the copper links that shuttle data between them are running out of road. So the industry is racing to move that traffic onto light …

Google is using Nvidia’s own playbook to break its grip on AI chips
Google is using Nvidia’s own playbook to break its grip on AI chips

To build a serious rival to Nvidia, Google has reached for Nvidia’s own playbook. A Wall Street Journal investigation lays out how Google is using financial guarantees and what the industry calls “circular financing”, the very tactics that helped make …

The US says one of ASML’s top chip tools is in China. ASML says it isn’t.
The US says one of ASML’s top chip tools is in China. ASML says it isn’t.

The US has accused the one company on Earth that makes the machines behind cutting-edge chips of letting one slip into China. It has not shown its proof, and the company says it never happened. In a series of recent meetings, Commerce Secretary Howard …

ASML denies US government report that its EUV chipmaking tool was shipped to China — says ‘rumors’ are ‘inaccurate and damaging to our reputation’

U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick expresses concerns in a conversation with ASML executives that China has an EUV lithography system as ASML denies shipping such scanners to the PRC.

AI’s memory crunch just killed a phone. Even Apple flinched.
AI’s memory crunch just killed a phone. Even Apple flinched.

For a year, AI’s hunger for memory chips was a price story: your next laptop or phone would cost more. This week it became a product story. Nothing has scrapped its planned CMF Phone 3 Pro, with a co-founder saying the company could not build a budget …

Architect Labs raises $24M to let any company design its own AI chip
Architect Labs raises $24M to let any company design its own AI chip

Designing a chip is hard. It takes years, hundreds of millions of dollars, and a tiny pool of experts. Most of them sit inside a few large companies. Architect Labs wants to change that with AI. The Palo Alto startup left stealth on Thursday with a $24…

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.