On Friday, the AI world was caught by storm as the board of directors of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT and other AI software, fired its CEO, Sam Altman. According to multiple sources reporting the state of OpenAI, Sam Altman was stunned by the board's decision of his removal, where the company published a public statement with many remarks, primarily informing the public that "Mr. Altman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI."

After Sam Altman's leave, Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, announced that he was also leaving the company. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and other investors have stepped in to lead negotiations between the OpenAI board and Sam Altman to return to his position as the CEO of the non-profit company. However, according to The Information, Sam Altman will not be returning as the CEO, and instead, Emmett Shear will be appointed as the interim CEO of OpenAI. It is also reported that the departure of Sam Altman is now being followed by three senior researchers, Jakub Pachocki, Aleksander Madry, and Szymon Sidor, who have left the company to follow Sam Altman's next adventure. They wanted to go back to OpenAI if Mr. Altman would return; however, with Emmett Shear now being appointed as interim CEO, the company is in shambles with its senior staff employment in question.Update 15:30 UTC: Sam Altman has joined Microsoft alongside Greg Brockman to lead Microsoft's advanced AI research efforts; additionally with hundreds of OpenAI staff wanting to do projects under Sam Altman's lead. Apparently there are 700 members of staff, and 505 of them plan to follow Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman under Microsoft's wing.

During the Q3 2023 earnings call, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger was answering some questions from analysts regarding the company's future and its position on emerging competition. One of the most significant problems the company could face is the potential Arm-based chip development not coming from x86 vendors like Intel and AMD. Instead, there could be fierce competition in the near future with the recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X, possible NVIDIA Arm-based PC processor, and in the future, even more Arm CPU providers that Intel would have to compete against in the client segment. During the call, Pat Gelsinger noted that "Arm and Windows client alternatives, generally, they've been relegated to pretty insignificant roles in the PC business. And we take all competition seriously. But I think history as our guide here, we don't see these potentially being all that significant overall. Our momentum is strong. We have a strong roadmap."

Additionally, the CEO noted: "When thinking about other alternative architectures like Arm, we also say, wow, what a great opportunity for our foundry business." If the adoption of Arm-based CPUs for Windows PCs becomes more present, Intel plans to compete with its next-generation x86 offerings like Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and even Panther Lake in the future. As stated, the CEO expects the competition to manufacture its chips at Intel's foundries so that Intel can provide a platform for these companies to serve the PC ecosystem.

Logitech International today announced financial results for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2024.

• Sales were $1.06 billion, down 8 percent in US dollars and 9 percent in constant currency, compared to the prior year.
• GAAP operating income was $157 million, up 23 percent compared to the prior year. Non-GAAP operating income was $183 million, up 17 percent compared to the prior year. In the quarter, the Company continued to reduce operating expenses, down 9 percent compared to the prior year, in line with the decline in net sales.
• GAAP earnings per share (EPS) was $0.86, up 72 percent compared to the prior year. Non-GAAP EPS was $1.09, up 30 percent compared to the prior year.
• Cash flow from operations was $223 million, up $150 million compared to the prior year. The quarter-ending cash balance was $1.16 billion. In the quarter, the Company returned $276 million of cash to shareholders through its annual dividend payment and share repurchases.

"The Logitech team stepped up execution this quarter and delivered results that demonstrate the underlying potential of our business," said Guy Gecht, Logitech interim chief executive officer. "We made great progress toward a return to growth and exceeded our pre-pandemic profit levels. Our design-led innovation capabilities were on full display, with 16 new product introductions during the quarter. I'm proud of what our team has accomplished in this challenging environment. We remain focused on developing market leading products, operational excellence, and value creation for shareholders."

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2023 third-quarter results.

• Q3 net sales of €6.7 billion, gross margin of 51.9%, net income of €1.9 billion
• Quarterly net bookings in Q3 of €2.6 billion of which €0.5 billion is EUV
• ASML expects Q4 2023 net sales between €6.7 billion and €7.1 billion and a gross margin between 50% and 51%
• ASML confirms its expectation to grow net sales towards 30% in 2023

CEO statement and outlook
"Our third-quarter net sales came in at €6.7 billion, around the midpoint of our guidance, with a gross margin of 51.9%, higher than guided, primarily driven by the DUV product mix and some one-off costs effects. "The semiconductor industry is currently working through the bottom of the cycle and our customers expect the inflection point to be visible by the end of this year. Customers continue to be uncertain about the shape of the demand recovery in the industry. We therefore expect 2024 to be a transition year. Based on our current perspective, we take a more conservative view and expect a revenue number similar to 2023. But we also look at 2024 as an important year to prepare for significant growth that we expect for 2025.

Nikkei recently conducted an interview with Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo's current president—to commemorate a special occasion. The Japanese multinational video game company is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its "Family Computer" (aka Famicom/NES) home gaming system. A lot of the conversation revolved around the significant legacy (and sales: 61.91 million units) of their first home games console, but subsequent media attention focused on Furukawa-san discussing plans for the popular Switch model and beyond. Dr. Serkan Toto (of industry consultancy Kantan Games Inc.) kindly pulled out and translated the key takeaways from Nikkei's paywalled article. The Nintendo CEO did not disclose any major revelations—he stated that his team will be dedicated to advancing the current Switch's business model until March 2024 (end of the '23-'24 fiscal year): "The biggest obstacle at any time, not just limited to the "Next Console", is knowing whether we can deliver something that customers really want." This answer aligns with information disclosed to investors a couple of months ago, and a September Direct announcement of upcoming new titles and remasters.

The wider gaming community is eager to find out what is in store for the rumored "Switch 2," but Furukawa remained guarded about future prospects. He revealed that Nintendo will continue to "support" the existing model over the fiscal year starting April 2024 to March 2025 (FY24): "I can't talk about the specific topic...We are still working on Nintendo Switch software for the fiscal year ending March 2025. The momentum will be sustained to continue to expand the Switch business. In the fiscal year ending March 2024, we will keep up the Zelda momentum and move into the holiday selling season. In terms of hardware, we will maximize demand not only for new purchases, but also for second units and replacements." This rather boring outlook contrasts heavily with recent leaks—next-gen tech demos and dev kits are alleged to be out there. It is commendable that the House of Mario is dedicated to its existing customer base (129.5 million units sold as of September 2023), but the Switch's creaky Tegra X1 SoC simply cannot keep up with competition in modern times, even with customized FSR 2 support. A bespoke NVIDIA Jetson Orin SoC (T239/Drake) is speculated to drive the successor's insides, although wilder theories point to NVIDIA and MediaTek's chipset alliance producing a more potent solution that embraces newer architectures.

The scheduled maintenance carried out last week has fixed the initial matchmaking issues that occurred during Payday 3's first few days after launch. Matchmaking has been stable and has had good performance after the completed maintenance. In the past five days, PAYDAY 3 had a peak concurrent players (CCU) of 124,254. In September 2023, the game had 3,167,938 unique players (MAU). Starbreeze Nebula has a total of 4,538,702 registered users across all titles.

Starbreeze will now intensify the commercial activities around Payday 3, after partially pausing these during the previous week. In early October, the first update to Payday 3 will launch, focusing on improving the game experience. The coming months include planned updates for PAYDAY 3 that address both content, Quality of Life-improvements, bug fixes and new functionality.

MIPS, a leading developer of high- performance RISC-V compute IP, has announced embedded systems industry veteran Sameer Wasson as the company's new CEO. Before joining MIPS, Wasson spent 18 years at Texas Instruments (TI), most recently as Vice President, Business Unit (BU) Manager, Processors, where he was responsible for the company's Processor businesses. In that role, Wasson re-established TI as a mainstream microprocessor (MPU) and microcontroller (MCU) supplier for high growth automotive and industrial markets, and established the company's footprint in embedded AI, software defined vehicles, and electrification.

As the new CEO of MIPS, Wasson will further accelerate the company's leadership in the High-Performance RISC-V market as it continues to expand its footprint in Automotive and Enterprise markets.

Arm's impending IPO, valued between $60 billion and $70 billion, has reportedly garnered substantial backing from industry giants such as Apple, NVIDIA, Intel, and Samsung, as per sources cited in a Bloomberg report. This much-anticipated public offering serves as a litmus test for investor interest in new chip-related stocks and could reshape the tech industry landscape. While the information remains unofficial, it underscores the significant support Arm has received from major licensees, including Apple, AMD, Cadence, Intel, Google, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Synopsys, with each potentially contributing between $25 million and $100 million, a testament to their confidence in Arm's future prospects. Originally, SoftBank aimed to raise $8 billion to $10 billion through the IPO, but a strategic shift to retain a larger Arm stake revised the target to $5 billion to $7 billion.

This IPO's success holds paramount importance for SoftBank and its CEO, Masayoshi Son, particularly following the Vision Fund's substantial $30 billion loss in the previous fiscal year. Masayoshi Son is reportedly committed to maintaining significant control over Arm, planning to release no more than 10% of the company's shares during this initial phase, aligning with SoftBank's recent acquisition of the Vision Fund's Arm stake and reinforcing their belief in Arm's long-term potential. Arm has enlisted renowned global financial institutions such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Mizuho Financial Group to prepare for the IPO, highlighting the widespread interest in the offering and the anticipated benefits for these financial institutions.

During the Aspen Security Forums 2023, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke on the topic of semiconductors and national security. During his speech, Gelsinger mentioned that Intel should get the lion's share of the US$52 billion US CHIPS Act money, simply because Intel is a US company. In Gelsinger's opinion, it appears that TSMC and Samsung don't deserve as much, despite both companies manufacturing semiconductors for US companies, with Samsung already having a foundry in Texas, while TSMC is still struggling with the construction of its Arizona foundry.

Admittedly, Intel has far more foundries in the US, but it also seems like Gelsinger forgot about other foundries, such as GlobalFoundries, but also companies such as Micron, Texas Instruments, Qorvo, NXP, On Semi, Analog Devices and so forth that all own foundries that produce their own chips on US soil. We'd expect all these companies to be eyeing the CHIPS Act cash and without many of those companies, Intel wouldn't be able to sell any of its chips, as many of them produce much needed components that are used to build motherboards, laptops and what not. Gelsinger was obviously pointing fingers at the current US China trade war and how the export controls are causing concerns with regards to the global semiconductor business. As such, Gelsinger wants Intel to have fewer restrictions from the currently imposed trade regulations, largely due to China being some 25 to 30 percent of Intel's market, with Intel being busy expanding in the country. Make what you want of this, but it's clear that Gelsinger is expecting to eat the cake and have it at the same time. Video after the break.

We launched PlayStation 5 in November 2020 and the world was in a strange and different place than when we announced the console in 2019. Despite the unprecedented challenges of COVID, our teams and our partners worked diligently to deliver PS5 on time. We continued to face headwinds with the pandemic, and it took months for supply chains to normalize so we could have the inventory to keep up with demand. For more months than I care to remember, we kept thanking our community for their patience while working through these issues. But now PS5 supply is well-stocked and we are seeing that pent up demand finally being met.

With the support of PlayStation fans, we have reached a milestone of 40 million PS5 consoles sold through to gamers since launch. Thank you so much to our community of gamers - without you this would have been an impossible task. PS5 launched with the best catalog of games in our history and the momentum for great content keeps getting stronger. From innovative indie games to AAA blockbusters, there are more than 2,500 PS5 games now available, and it has never been a better time to experience PS5 In the last two months alone, we have seen incredible new games from our partners, including Final Fantasy XVI, Diablo IV, and Street Fighter 6.

Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka stated earlier today: "Dear Gamers, I want to share some really exciting news that will mark the start of a new chapter of Techland's history. Techland has been a huge part of my life for more than 30 years now and it is something I truly cherish. Techland is our games, the amazing team behind them, and you, the people playing these games. You're the reason why we're making them. Whenever I think about the future of Techland, I want the best for our games, the team, and you. And while I am very proud of our achievements as an independent studio over all these years, I believe the best is yet to come.

We dream of turning Dying Light into the ultimate zombie game experience for players worldwide, providing you with multiple astonishing adventures and pushing the boundaries of solo and online modes to a totally new level. Our open world action-RPG in a fantasy setting is already shaping up to become something truly special, and the goal here is to make sure it will live up to the expectations for our first new IP in almost a decade. Can we make these dreams come true? Yes, we can. But what we realized is that the best, boldest dreams can only be achieved while working side-by-side with like-minded friends and strong partners, who share the same vision, passion, and have the willingness to back it up with their knowledge, experience, and capabilities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in chip design, with recent examples from China and the United States showcasing its potential. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, believes that AI can empower individuals to become programmers, while Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, predicts an era where AI dominates chip design. During the 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, Su emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration for the next generation of chip designers. To excel in this field, engineers must possess a holistic understanding of hardware, software, and algorithms, enabling them to create superior chip designs that meet system usage, customer deployment, and application requirements.

The integration of AI into chip design processes has gained momentum, fueled by the AI revolution catalyzed by large language models (LLMs). Both Huang and Mark Papermaster, CTO of AMD, acknowledge the benefits of AI in accelerating computation and facilitating chip design. AMD has already started leveraging AI in semiconductor design, testing, and verification, with plans to expand its use of generative AI in chip design applications. Companies are now actively exploring the fusion of AI technology with Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools to streamline complex tasks and minimize manual intervention in chip design. Despite limited data and accuracy challenges, the "EDA+AI" approach holds great promise. For instance, Synopsys has invested significantly in AI tool research and recently launched Synopsys.ai, the industry's first end-to-end AI-driven EDA solution. This comprehensive solution empowers developers to harness AI at every stage of chip development, from system architecture and design to manufacturing, marking a significant leap forward in AI's integration into chip design workflows.

Three leading European generative AI startups joined NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang this week to talk about the new era of computing. More than 500 developers, researchers, entrepreneurs and executives from across Europe and further afield packed into the Spindler and Klatt, a sleek, riverside gathering spot in Berlin. Huang started the reception by touching on the message he delivered Monday at the Berlin Summit for Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE), an international collaboration focused on climate science. He shared details of NVIDIA's Earth-2 initiative and how accelerated computing, AI-augmented simulation and interactive digital twins drive climate science research.

Before sitting down for a fireside chat with the founders of the three startups, Huang introduced some "special guests" to the audience—four of the world's leading climate modeling scientists, who he called the "unsung heroes" of saving the planet. "These scientists have dedicated their careers to advancing climate science," said Huang. "With the vision of EVE, they are the architects of the new era of climate science."

Last week Micron Technology CEO, Sanjay Mehrotra, announced during an investors meeting that the company's next generation GPU memory—GDDR7—will be arriving next year: "In graphics, industry analysts continue to expect graphics' TAM compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to outpace the broader market, supported by applications across client and data center. We expect customer inventories to normalize in calendar Q3. We plan to introduce our next-generation G7 product on our industry-leading 1ß node in the first half of calendar year 2024." His proposed launch window seems to align with information gleaned from previous reports—with NVIDIA and AMD lined up to fit GDDR7 SGRAM onto their next-gen mainstream GPUs, although Team Green could be delaying their Ada Lovelace successor into 2025.

Micron already counts these big players as key clients for its current GDDR6 and GDDR6X video memory offerings, but Samsung could be vying for some of that action with its own GDDR7 technology (as announced late last year). Presentation material indicated that Samsung is anticipating data transfer rates in the range of 36 Gbps, with usage of PAM3 signalling. Cadence has also confirmed similar numbers for its (industry first) GDDR7 verification solution, but the different encoding standard will require revising of memory controllers and physical interfaces.

A new global study by the IBM Institute for Business Value found that nearly half of CEOs surveyed identify productivity as their highest business priority—up from sixth place in 2022. They recognize technology modernization is key to achieving their productivity goals, ranking it as second highest priority. Yet, CEOs can face key barriers as they race to modernize and adopt new technologies like generative AI.

The annual CEO study, CEO decision-making in the age of AI, Act with intention, found three-quarters of CEO respondents believe that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI. However, executives are also weighing potential risks or barriers of the technology such as bias, ethics and security. More than half (57%) of CEOs surveyed are concerned about data security and 48% worry about bias or data accuracy.

This announcement was shared with Electronic Arts employees by CEO Andrew Wilson: "Team, the amazing experiences we create and deliver—across platforms, geographies, and business models—captivate hundreds of millions of players and counting. As more and more people around the world choose games as their first and most important way to come together, express themselves, and share their fandom, what we do together as leaders of interactive entertainment matters more than ever.

Engaging these growing audiences represents incredible opportunities for our teams to entertain massive online communities, create blockbuster interactive storytelling, and amplify the power of community in and around our games with social and creator tools. Creativity and innovation have always been the foundation of everything we do. Now, we must further empower our creative teams so that we might realize our strategic vision. Today, we are announcing the next step of our strategy by aligning our studios into two organizations that report to me—EA Entertainment and EA SPORTS. This evolution of our company continues to empower our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability to make faster and more insightful decisions around development and go to market strategies. These steps will accelerate our business, drive growth, and deliver long-term value for our people, our players and our communities.

Generative AI will "supercharge" creators across industries and content types, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said today at the Cannes Lions Festival, on the French Riviera. "For the very first time, the creative process can be amplified in content generation, and the content generation could be in any modality - it could be text, images, 3D, videos," Huang said in a conversation with Mark Read, CEO of WPP - the world's largest marketing and communications services company.

At the event attended by thousands of creators, marketers and brand execs from around the world, Huang outlined the impact of AI on the $700 billion digital advertising industry. He also touched on the ways AI can enhance creators' abilities, as well as the importance of responsible AI development. "You can do content generation at scale, but infinite content doesn't imply infinite creativity," he said. "Through our thoughts, we have to direct this AI to generate content that has to be aligned to your values and your brand tone." The discussion followed Huang's recent keynote at COMPUTEX, where NVIDIA and WPP announced a collaboration to develop a content engine powered by generative AI and the NVIDIA Omniverse platform for building and operating metaverse applications.

Intel and the German federal government have signed a revised letter of intent for Intel's planned leading-edge wafer fabrication site in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state in Germany. The agreement encompasses Intel's expanded investment in the site, now expected to be more than 30 billion euros for two first-of-a-kind semiconductor facilities (also known as "fabs") in Europe, along with increased government support that includes incentives, reflecting the expanded scope and change in economic conditions since the site was first announced.

Intel acquired the land for the project in November 2022, and the first facility is expected to enter production in four to five years following the European Commission's approval of the incentive package. Given the current timeline and scale of the investment, Intel plans to deploy more advanced Angstrom-era technology in the facilities than originally envisioned. The Magdeburg site will serve Intel products and Intel Foundry Services customers.

Intel has been planning to build its next-generation semiconductor manufacturing plant in Germany for a long time. Today, we have more information thanks to the Handelsblatt business and financial newspaper. According to the Handelsblatt, Intel is in talks with the German government to get as much as 9.9 billion Euros in state subsidies, a target price much higher than the previously agreed 6.8 billion Euros. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck has been reportedly working intensively to get the amount of state aid for Intel to be this high. Intel's CEO Patrick Gelsinger is supposed to seal the deal on Monday when he will sign the agreement in the Chancellery.

As reported, the location of the next-generation facility will be Saxony-Anhalt, with the more precise location to be known on Monday. Also, we expect to hear what manufacturing node will the upcoming facility produce at the beginning.

Jim Ryan, the current President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, has once again confirmed his company's committal to staggering the launch of PlayStation ports onto the PC platform. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu published an interview last week, and western news outlets have spent time over the past weekend translating and analyzing this article. The contents/discussion focuses mostly on Sony Corporation's strategies for its PlayStation 5 console in their native market. Ryan addresses the interviewer's question about the growing popularity of gaming on PCs in Japan (the nation has historically favored home console platforms): "I think that's a very good thing. When considering the multifaceted development of game IP, PCs are indispensable for allowing more people to enjoy games in a variety of ways. I think (that) more is better."

Ryan was asked about the possibility of simultaneous first-party game launches on PS5 and PC platforms in the future - his answer points to the company not deviating from its normal operating strategy: "We also fully understand the importance of PS5 exclusive titles. As I mentioned earlier, PlayStation Studios' main responsibility is to make games for the latest PlayStation hardware that players will enjoy. We are increasing the number of PS5 exclusive games, and staggering the release of the PC versions." Ryan claims to have received positive feedback from gamers about this matter: "I often have the opportunity to ask game fans for their opinions, and when I ask them how they feel about the time lag, they often say they feel the release of a PC version two or three years after the release of the PlayStation version is acceptable. It's a community that we should cherish the most. We will continue to listen to the voices of game fans and develop various titles in a multifaceted manner."

In its recent Second Quarter of the Fiscal Year 2023 conference, Synopsys issued interesting information about the recent moves of chip developers and their usage of artificial intelligence. As the call notes, over 200+ chips have been taped out using Synopsys DSO.ai place-and-route (PnR) tool, making it a successful commercially proven AI chip design tool. The DSO.ai uses AI to optimize the placement and routing of the chip's transistors so that the layout is compact and efficient with regard to the strict timing constraints of the modern chip. According to Aart J. de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, "By the end of 2022, adoption, including 9 of the top 10 semiconductor vendors have moved forward at great speed with 100 AI-driven commercial tape-outs. Today, the tally is well over 200 and continues to increase at a very fast clip as the industry broadly adopts AI for design from Synopsys."

This is an interesting fact that means that customers are seeing the benefits of AI-assisted tools like DSO.ai. However, the company is not stopping there, and a whole suite of tools is getting an AI makeover. "We unveiled the industry's first full-stack AI-driven EDA suite, sydnopsys.ai," noted the CEO, adding that "Specifically, in parallel to second-generation advances in DSO.ai we announced VSO.ai, which stands for verification space optimization; and TSO.ai, test space optimization. In addition, we are extending AI across the design stack to include analog design and manufacturing." Synopsys' partners in this include NVIDIA, TSMC, MediaTek, Renesas, and IBM Research, all of which used AI-assisted tools for chip design efforts. A much wider range of industry players is expected to adopt these tools as chip design costs continue to soar as we scale the nodes down. With future 3 nm GPU costing an estimated $1.5 billion, 40% of that will account for software, and Synopsys plans to take a cut in that percentage.

Ampere Computing today announced a new AmpereOne Family of processors with up to 192 single threaded Ampere cores - the highest core count in the industry. This is the first product from Ampere based on the company's new custom core, built from the ground up and leveraging the company's internal IP. CEO Renée James, who founded Ampere Computing to offer a modern alternative to the industry with processors designed specifically for both efficiency and performance in the Cloud, said there was a fundamental shift happening that required a new approach.

"Every few decades of compute there has emerged a driving application or use of performance that sets a new bar of what is required of performance," James said. "The current driving uses are AI and connected everything combined with our continued use and desire for streaming media. We cannot continue to use power as a proxy for performance in the data center. At Ampere, we design our products to maximize performance at a sustainable power, so we can continue to drive the future of the industry."

Sega Sammy Holdings CEO Haruki Satomi and CFO Koichi Fukazawa were took part in a Q&A session last month, as a follow-on to the company releasing its financial reports for the past fiscal year. An English translation of the event's notes has only just become available this week, with news outlets picking up on a key item - computer game pricing. General life costs have been climbing in recent times, and games publishers have been adjusting MSRPs due to the rising expense of developing new content, especially in the AAA sector.

The Sega executive team has noticed this industry trend and is pondering over the options - the session notes state: "In the global marketplace, AAA game titles for console have been sold at $59.99 for many years, but titles sold at $69.99 have appeared in the last year...We would like to review the prices of titles that we believe are commensurate with price increases, while also keeping an eye on market conditions." Nintendo has recently joined the likes of Sony, Activision, 2K and Ubisoft in bumping up MSRP to $70, but this pricing decision has only affected the latest Legend of Zelda title - Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo of America's CEO Doug Bowser defended the move (prior to the game's release) - he argued that the direct sequel to Breath of the Wild would offer fantastic value for money.

NVIDIA's co-founder and current CEO Jensen Huang will be receiving a slightly reduced salary this year, due to his company not meeting some financial goals. Team Green has published their report for the financial year of 2023, and several tech news outlets have been poring over the details - The Register was the first to spot that the intrepid leather jacketed leader was not being as handsomely compensated (when cross-referenced with previous FY results). Huang's pay has been cut by almost $2.5 million, so a 10% fall from before - given that he is already a billionaire, going into double digits, this verdict is a minor sting to the proverbial (matching leather?) wallet.

The company's annual review (for FY 2023) document provides a reason for select executive pay cuts: "Fiscal 2023 was a challenging year, with macroeconomic headwinds, channel inventory corrections, COVID-19 and product architecture transitions affecting several of our businesses. As a result, our Fiscal 2023 revenue and non-GAAP Operating Income performance fell short of the CC's (compensation committee's) pre-established goals for executive compensation." Huang will not be hurting too much from the small pay cut since he is set to earn $21.356 million in total, thanks to generous stock awards and miscellaneous benefits outside of his base salary (now a mere $996,216). NVIDIA is expected to rake in even more cash across the coming year, or two, due to growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) processing. Tech companies are snapping up NVIDIA's enterprise-grade H100 GPUs in anticipation of an AI-powered future.

Barron's Magazine has been on a technology industry kick this week and published their interview with AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su on May 3. The interviewer asks Su about her views on Moore's Law and it becomes apparent that she remains a believer of Gordon Moore's (more than half-century old) prediction - Moore, an Intel co-founder passed away in late March. Su explains that her company's engineers will need to innovate in order to carry on with that legacy: "I would certainly say I don't think Moore's Law is dead. I think Moore's Law has slowed down. We have to do different things to continue to get that performance and that energy efficiency. We've done chiplets - that's been one big step. We've now done 3-D packaging. We think there are a number of other innovations, as well." Expertise in other areas is also key in hitting technological goals: "Software and algorithms are also quite important. I think you need all of these pieces for us to continue this performance trajectory that we've all been on."

When asked about the challenges involved in advancing CPU designs within limitations, Su responds with: "Yes. The transistor costs and the amount of improvement you're getting from density and overall energy reduction is less from each generation. But we're still moving (forward) generation to generation. We're doing plenty of work in 3 nanometer today, and we're looking beyond that to 2 nm as well. But we'll continue to use chiplets and these type of constructions to try to get around some of the Moore's Law challenges." AMD and Intel continue to hold firm with Moore's Law, even though slightly younger upstarts disagree (see NVIDIA). Dr. Lisa Su's latest thoughts stay consistent with her colleague's past statements - AMD CTO Mark Papermaster reckoned that the theory is pertinent for another six to eight years, although it could be a costly endeavor for AMD - the company believes that it cannot double transistor density every 18 to 24 months without incurring extra expenses.