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May 29 (Reuters) - SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) owned chip designer Arm on Monday rolled out new technology for mobile devices and Taiwan smartphone chip maker MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) said it will be using it for its next-generation product. In Arm's blog announcing the new products, MediaTek said the new chips will help improve the performance of its next-generation smartphones. "Investors have become extremely sensitive to any news about AI or chip technology and jumped on this Arm news," said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management. Last month the Financial Times reported that Arm was developing its own chip to showcase the capabilities of its designs. Arm said the Cortex-X4 was taped out on TSMC's N3E process and said it was an industry first.

May 29 (Reuters) - Arm Ltd on Monday rolled out new chip technology for mobile devices and Taiwan smartphone chip maker MediaTek Inc (2454.TW) said it will be using it for its next-generation product. In Arm's blog announcing the new products, MediaTek said the new chips will help improve the performance of its next-generation smartphones. "Arm is not in the business of selling chips. Last month the Financial Times reported that Arm was developing its own chip to showcase the capabilities of its designs. Arm said the Cortex-X4 was taped out on TSMC's N3E process and said it was an industry first.

☆ Intel gives details on future AI chips as it shifts strategy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 22 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) on Monday provided a handful of new details on a chip for artificial intelligence (AI) computing it plans to introduce in 2025 as it shifts strategy to compete against Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.O). At a supercomputing conference in Germany on Monday, Intel said its forthcoming "Falcon Shores" chip will have 288 gigabytes of memory and support 8-bit floating point computation. Intel, by contrast, has essentially no market share after its would-be Nvidia competitor, a chip called Ponte Vecchio, suffered years of delays. Intel on Monday said it has nearly completed shipments for Argonne National Lab's Aurora supercomputer based on Ponte Vecchio, which Intel claims has better performance than Nvidia's latest AI chip, the H100. But Intel's Falcon Shores follow-on chip won't be to market until 2025, when Nvidia will likely have another chip of its own out.

SANTA CLARA, California May 22 (Reuters) - U.S. semiconductor toolmaker Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) on Monday said it plans to spend up to $4 billion on a research center in the heart of Silicon Valley to speed up advances in semiconductor manufacturing. Applied Materials said the new facility, called the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center, will be the size of more than three American football fields. The scale of how fast we invest is going to be tied to the government incentives," Gary Dickerson, CEO of Applied Materials, told Reuters. Taking ideas from research universities and turning them into tools used in factories can take many years, said Applied executives. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend an Applied Materials' event in Silicon Valley announcing the center, along with top executives from major chip companies.

☆ Nvidia chips away at Intel, AMD turf in supercomputers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nvidia is the world's top maker of graphics processing units (GPUs), which are in high demand because they can be used to speed up artificial intelligence work. But Nvidia's GPU chips are typically paired with what is called a central processing unit (CPU), a market that has been dominated by Intel and AMD for decades. The University of Bristol system will be used for climate science and drug discovery research, among other things. That's actually six times more performance and energy efficiency than the university's previous system, Isambard 2," Ian Buck, general manager and vice president of accelerated computing at Nvidia, said during a press briefing. Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Bill BerkrotOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ G-7 won't succeed in making China change its position on Russia, says professor
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailG-7 won't succeed in making China change its position on Russia, says professorStephen Nagy, professor at the International Christian University, discusses the G-7 meeting in Hiroshima, and explains the key themes that will be covered.

☆ Six Pacific countries at high risk of debt distress - World Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

To match Feature PACIFIC-JUSTICE/ REUTERS/Lincoln FeastWELLINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - Six Pacific countries are at a high risk of debt distress in part due to government spending to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, the World Bank said in a report on Thursday. Among other countries in the region, Vanuatu is rated at medium risk, while Palau and Nauru’s debt is sustainable, the report noted. The World Bank last month said that Fiji must also take urgent action to reduce its debt burden. Stephen Ndegwa, World Bank Country Director for Papua New Guinea & the Pacific Islands, said reducing debt, strengthening revenue and improving the quality of government spending are critical areas for Pacific countries to address. It also said that Pacific countries should allocate more to social assistance and protection measures.

May 18 (Reuters) - Semiconductor manufacturing tools maker Applied Materials Inc (AMAT.O) forecast third-quarter revenue above market estimates on Thursday, as governments around the world pour funding into chip factories. Chief Executive Officer Gary E. Dickerson said the company believes about $400 billion in government funding is supporting the chip industry. Applied Materials forecast third-quarter revenue of $6.15 billion, plus or minus $400 million, compared with analysts' estimates of $6.02 billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data. The company posted second-quarter revenue of $6.63 billion, compared with estimates of $6.38 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2 per share in the second quarter, beating estimates of $1.84 according to Refinitiv IBES data.

☆ Ampere Computing launches its custom chips aimed at cloud computing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 18 (Reuters) - Ampere Computing on Thursday released a new family of data center chips with technology it has custom-designed for cloud computing companies. Founded by former Intel Corp (INTC.O) president Renee James, Ampere has focused on courting cloud companies that buy thousands of chips at a time and in turn rent them out. Unlike Intel, Ampere uses a computing architecture from SoftBank Group Corp-owned (9984.T) Arm Ltd, which is also an investor in Ampere. The new Ampere chips will have as many as 192 of those cores where Intel chips tend to have only a few dozen. We are ever hopeful that the market will open and that it will open for growth companies," James said.

Reuters previously reported that the company was not planning to deploy its first in-house AI chip widely and was already working on a successor. The blog posts portrayed the first MTIA chip as a learning opportunity. As part of that, the company scrapped plans for a large-scale rollout of an in-house inference chip and started work on a more ambitious chip capable of performing both training and inference, according to the Reuters reporting. Meta acknowledged in its blog posts that its first MTIA chip stumbled with high-complexity AI models, although it said the chip handled low- and medium-complexity models more efficiently than competitor chips. The MTIA chip also used only 25 watts of power - a fraction of what market-leading chips from suppliers such as Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) consume - and used an open-source chip architecture called RISC-V, Meta said.

But the materials are expensive and still face supply bottlenecks compared with the cheaper standard silicon used in most chips. The company has previously raised funding from semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT.O). iDEAL has partnered with Bloomington, Minnesota-based chip manufacturer Polar Semiconductor to make its first chips and is planning to roll them out later this year. Granahan said silicon carbide chips can still beat iDEAL's for certain applications including the extremely high voltage chips needed for applications such as electric semi trucks. But he said iDEAL's chips could be competitive for about 90% of the overall market for power chips.

☆ ON Semiconductor mulls $2 bln investment in electric vehicle chip production
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 16 (Reuters) - ON Semiconductor Corp (ON.O) is considering investing $2 billion in boosting production of silicon carbide chips that are widely used to help extend the range of electric vehicles, company executives said on Tuesday. The company makes more than half of its own chips internally and has invested in a full supply chain for energy efficient silicon carbide chips, making both the raw materials and finished chips in-house. Trent said that increased silicon carbide production would happen at one of the company's existing sites, rather building a new factory, to save costs. At a financial analyst day on Thursday, executives said they aim to capture 40% of the silicon carbide automotive chip market by 2027. Over the same time period, ON Semiconductor expects to expand free cash flows from $1.6 billion in 2022 to $3.5 billion to $4 billion by 2027.

☆ Putin's Victory Day speech was as extreme as ever, claiming a 'real war' was being waged against Russia, even as his military had a measly showing at the celebration
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Vladimir Putin said the West was waging a "real war" against Russia in his Victory Day speech. Victory Day is celebrated on May 9 every year in Russia to commemorate the Soviet Union's victory over Germany in World War II. Leading up to Victory Day, officials in several Russian cities canceled their parades. "He almost acts as if the world is no different than it was in World War II," Norris explained. He also said Ukraine would replace Russia's Victory Day with a new holiday to be celebrated annually on May 9 — Europe Day.

☆ Intel, Boston Consulting Group team to sell AI to corporate customers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 10 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) and Boston Consulting Group on Wednesday said they are working together to sell generative artificial intelligence tools to big businesses. Google owner Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) are revamping their search engines with AI technology to provide answers to questions rather than lists of links. Previously, BCG employees conducted a keyword search and had to click through each document to see whether it contained what they were looking for. With the new system, the AI system can answer employees' questions using the archive or summarize entire documents. Intel built the supercomputer and software so that BCG did not have to share its data with Intel.

☆ LinkedIn cuts over 700 jobs, phases out China app as demand wavers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

In the past six months, more than 270,000 tech jobs globally have been cut, according to Layoffs.fyi, which has been tracking the fallout. A LinkedIn spokesperson said the vendors were "external partners" who would take on new and existing work. The remaining China app, called InCareers, will be phased out by Aug. 9, LinkedIn said. LinkedIn will retain a presence in China to help companies operating there to hire and train employees outside the country, the company spokesperson said. Before LinkedIn's announcement, 5,000 technology jobs had been in eliminated in May alone, according to Layoffs.fyi.

☆ LinkedIn to cut 716 jobs, phase out China local jobs app
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

May 8 (Reuters) - LinkedIn, the social media network owned by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) that focuses on business professionals, said on Monday it would cut 716 jobs as part of broader changes that would also result in it phasing out its local jobs app in China. In a letter to employees, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said the move to cut roles in its sales, operations and support teams was aimed at streamlining the company's operations. Roslansky also said in the letter that the changes would result in creating 250 new jobs. A LinkedIn spokesperson said that employees affected by the cuts would be eligible to apply for those roles. The remaining China app, called InCareers, will be phased out by Aug. 9, LinkedIn said.

☆ Alphabet-backed Anthropic outlines the moral values behind its AI bot
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The moral values guidelines, which Anthropic calls Claude's constitution, draw from several sources, including the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and even Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) data privacy rules. Anthropic was founded by former executives from Microsoft Corp-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI to focus on creating safe AI systems that will not, for example, tell users how to build a weapon or use racially biased language. Co-founder Dario Amodei was one of several AI executives who met with Biden last week to discuss potential dangers of AI. Anthropic takes a different approach, giving its Open AI competitor Claude a set of written moral values to read and learn from as it makes decisions on how to respond to questions. "In a few months, I predict that politicians will be quite focused on what the values are of different AI systems, and approaches like constitutional AI will help with that discussion because we can just write down the values," Clark said.

☆ Qualcomm to acquire Israeli auto-chip maker Autotalks
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Autotalks makes dedicated chips used in the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications technology for manned and driverless vehicles to improve road safety. The company had credited the jump to its Snapdragon Digital Chassis product used by car makers and their suppliers. The Snapdragon Digital Chassis can provide assisted and autonomous driving technology, as well as in-car infotainment and cloud connectivity. Qualcomm on Monday said it would incorporate Autotalks' solutions into Snapdragon Digital Chassis product portfolio, but did not elaborate on the financials of the deal. The acquisition will be made through its unit Qualcomm Technologies, Qualcomm added.

☆ Apple stakes future growth on emerging markets, starting with India
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Apple CEO Tim Cook gestures during the inauguration of India's first Apple retail store in Mumbai, India, April 18, 2023. Cook is betting that those markets will provide more opportunities for growth, with their youthful populations and relatively few iPhones. "We're putting efforts in a number of these markets and really see, particularly given our low share and the dynamics of the demographics, a great opportunity for us in those markets," Cook told investors during a conference call. India led the growth with a 19% jump, according to Counterpoint, with iPhones accounting for 11% of secondary smartphone sales in India. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Apple's Cook said little of Apple's direct iPhone revenue comes from refurbished devices.

☆ Meta Platforms scoops up AI networking chip team from Graphcore
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Katie Paul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

May 5 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) has hired an Oslo-based team that until late last year was building artificial-intelligence networking technology at British chip unicorn Graphcore. "We recently welcomed a number of highly-specialized engineers in Oslo to our infrastructure team at Meta. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has become increasingly reliant on AI technology to target advertising, select posts for its apps' feeds and purge banned content from its platforms. The 10 employees' job descriptions on LinkedIn indicated the team had worked on AI-specific networking technology at Graphcore, which develops computer chips and systems optimized for AI work. A new category of network chip has emerged to help keep data moving smoothly within those computing clusters.

☆ Apple beats revenue, profit estimate on iPhone sales growth
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Profit was flat at $1.52 per share, compared with estimates of a 5.7% fall to $1.43 per share, according to Refinitiv data. IPhone sales rose 1.5% to $51.33 billion, compared with analyst expectations of a 3.3% decline to $48.9 billion, according to Refinitiv. Mac sales fell more than 30% to $7.17 billion compared with analyst estimates of a 25% decline to $7.8 billion, according to Refinitiv. Apple's sales fared only slightly better than PC unit shipments in the market, which fell 33% in the calendar first quarter, according to Canalys data. Both were roughly the same as the 23 cents-per-share dividend and previous $90 billion share repurchase increase the company announced a year ago.

While Qualcomm hopes smartphone sales will recover in China in the second half of the year, CEO Cristiano Amon told investors on a conference call that "we have not seen evidence of meaningful recovery and are not incorporating improvements into our planning assumptions." The company said a larger-than-normal decline in its chip revenue forecast from the prior quarter was mainly due "to the timing of purchases by a modem-only handset customer." Qualcomm forecast chips revenue of $6.9 billion to $7.5 billion. Qualcomm also faces stiffer competition, especially for high end smartphone chips, from Taiwan's MediaTek (2454.TW). Qualcomm forecast total revenue of $8.1 billion to $8.9 billion in the third quarter.

☆ MosaicML launches new service in bid to challenge OpenAI on price
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Stephen Nellis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 3 (Reuters) - MosaicML, an artificial intelligence startup founded by former Intel Corp (INTC.O) executives and academic researchers, released on Wednesday two new products aimed at beating industry giants such as OpenAI on price. The company makes money selling the tools to firms that want to develop their own customized AI systems. But on Wednesday, MosaicML announced several new services that will compete more directly with companies like OpenAI or Anthropic, which build AI systems and then charge for access to them. MosaicML is offering those services at a cost it says is as much as 15 times lower than rival services. They have assurances that the model that's built on the private data is owned by them," Rao said.

But Nvidia has created variants of its chips for the Chinese market that are slowed down to meet U.S. rules. Even the slowed Nvidia chips represent an improvement for Chinese firms. The back-and-forth between government and industry exposes the U.S. challenge of slowing China's progress in high tech without hurting U.S. companies. Chip industry sources said that was an effective action. Some in the AI industry believe that is still plenty of speed.

Companies Apple Inc FollowMasimo Corp FollowMay 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge in California on Monday declared a mistrial in Masimo Corp's (MASI.O) potential billion-dollar smartwatch trade secret lawsuit against Apple Inc (AAPL.O) after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict, multiple media outlets reported. The jury in federal court in Santa Ana could not determine whether Cupertino, California-based Apple misused confidential information from Masimo related to the use of light to measure biomarkers including heart rates and blood-oxygen levels, U.S. District Judge James Selna said. The jury began deliberating on April 26 after a trial lasting about three weeks. Reporting by Blake Brittain and Stephen NellisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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