Today marks Intel's official CEO transition as Pat Gelsinger becomes the company's eighth chief executive officer in its history. Gelsinger is an accomplished CEO and industry veteran with more than four decades of technology and leadership experience - including 30 years at Intel, where he began his career.

Gelsinger shared his thoughts on returning to lead the company, saying:
"As the incoming CEO, I am just really thrilled that we have the opportunity to take this great icon of a company, this company that has been crucial to every aspect of technology, and have it be that leader again into the future. Because I believe that Intel has a treasure trove of technologists, of technology, and ultimately its core DNA is being that technology leader for the future. I'm just thrilled as a technologist, as a geek at heart, to be able to be in that leadership role to help bring the passions, the history, the opportunity of this great company forward as never before. Our best days are in front of us."

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. today announced the Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System, its fourth-generation 5G modem-to-antenna solution. It is the world's first 10 Gigabit 5G and the first 3GPP release 16 modem-RF system, which is currently sampling to OEMs and targeting commercial device launches in 2021. Snapdragon X65 is the Company's biggest leap in 5G solutions since the commercialization of its first modem-RF system. It is designed to support the fastest 5G speeds currently available with fiber-like wireless performance and makes best use of available spectrum for ultimate network flexibility, capacity and coverage. In addition to the Snapdragon X65, Qualcomm Technologies also announced the Snapdragon X62 5G Modem-RF System, a modem-to-antenna solution optimized for mainstream adoption of mobile broadband applications.

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2021 first quarter ended December 26, 2020. The Company posted all-time record revenue of $111.4 billion, up 21 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.68, up 35 percent. International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter's revenue.

"This quarter for Apple wouldn't have been possible without the tireless and innovative work of every Apple team member worldwide," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're gratified by the enthusiastic customer response to the unmatched line of cutting-edge products that we delivered across a historic holiday season. We are also focused on how we can help the communities we're a part of build back strongly and equitably, through efforts like our Racial Equity and Justice Initiative as well as our multi-year commitment to invest $350 billion throughout the United States."

Intel has today reported its Q4 2020 earnings disclosing full-year revenue with the current CEO Bob Swan, upcoming new CEO Pat Gelsinger, and Omar Ishrak, Chairman of Intel's board. During the call, company officials have talked about Intel's earnings and most importantly, addressing the current problems about the company's manufacturing part - semiconductor foundries. Incoming Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has talked about the state of the 7 nm node, giving shareholders reassurance and a will to remain in such a position. He has made an argument that he has personally reviewed the progress of the "health and recovery of the 7 nm program."

The 7 nm node has been originally delayed by a full year amid the expectations, and as with the 10 nm node, we have believed that it is going to experience similar issues. However, the incoming CEO has reassured everyone that it is very much improving. The new 7 nm node is on track for 2023 delivery, when Intel is expected to compete with the 3 nm node of TSMC. Firstly, Intel will make a debut of the 7 nm node with client processors scheduled for 1H 2023 arrival, with data center models following that. The company leads have confirmed that Intel will stay true to its internal manufacturing, but have stressed that there will still be a need for some outsourcing to happen.

Intel Corporation today reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 financial results. The company also announced that its board of directors approved a cash dividend increase of five percent to $1.39 per share on an annual basis. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.3475 per share on the company's common stock, which will be payable on March 1 to shareholders of record on February 7.

"We significantly exceeded our expectations for the quarter, capping off our fifth consecutive record year," said Bob Swan, Intel CEO. "Demand for the computing performance Intel delivers remains very strong and our focus on growth opportunities is paying off. It has been an honor to lead this wonderful company, and I am proud of what we have achieved as a team. Intel is in a strong strategic and financial position as we make this leadership transition and take Intel to the next level."

Intel's future CEO Pat Gelsinger, who supersedes current CEO Bob Swan come February 15th, has reportedly compared Intel with Apple's efforts, in wake of that company's decision to leave the Intel ecosystem in favor of in-house designed ARM CPUs. As Apple M1-powered devices hit reviewers' tables, the opinions mostly went one-sided in favor of Apple's decision, clamoring for that particular CPU design to be only lightly short of a computing miracle, considering the amount of computing power provided at that chip's TDP, and running circles around Apple's previous Intel implementations.

According to The Oregonian, a local newspaper from (you guessed it) Oregon where Intel has a strong branch presence, Intel held an all-hands meeting of its Oregon workforce, attended by future Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who is quoted as having remarked that "We [Intel] have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino makes. We have to be that good, in the future." Considering how Apple's M1 has raised the world's attention to the ARM architecture as a competitor with strong enough arguments to face the x86 ecosystem (as if ARM powering the world's current fastest supercomputer wasn't a strong enough argument), that seems like a strong yet adequate statement. We'll see how Intel fares with its Alder lake CPUs, which essentially bring ARM's design philosophy of an heterogeneous CPU with both high-performance and high-efficiency cores to the x86 table.

The midnight bell seems to have struck for Intel CEO Bob Swan, with Intel announcing his departure from the CEO position effective February 15th. The news comes after a two-year tenure as Intel's CEO, in addition to seven additional months in which Bob Swan served as interim Intel CEO before officially assuming the position. VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger will take over the CEO chair, and following this announcement, Intel's stock surged by more than 10%, while VMWare's stock dipped by 5% on the prospect of losing its CEO.

Patrick Gelsinger formerly served under Intel, where he climbed the ranks until reaching the coveted CTO position - and also served as Senior Vice-president and General Manager of the Digital Enterprise Group. He is also credited as being one of the driving forces behind the creation of standards such as USB and Wi-Fi, architected the 80486, and played key roles in 14 generations of Intel Core and Xeon processors. Investors expect Gelsinger's technical background to help steer Intel into less troubled waters when it comes to strategy and execution. in wake of Bob Swan's departure, Intel also announced that it expects fourth quarter 2020 revenue and earnings to exceed prior guidance, and that it will take to its January 21st earnings report to discuss the "strong progress" achieved by the company in the in-development 7 nm node.

Semiconductor manufacturing is not an easy feat to achieve. Especially if you are constantly chasing the smaller and smaller node. Intel knows this the best. The company has had a smooth transition from other nodes to the smaller ones until the 10 nm node came up. It has brought Intel years of additional delay and tons of cost improving the yields of a node that was seeming broken. Yesterday the company announced the new Tiger Lake-H processors for laptops that are built using the 10 nm process, however, we are questioning whatever Intel can keep up with the semiconductor industry and deliver the newest nodes on time, and with ease. During an interview with Intel's CEO Bob Swan, we can get a glimpse of Intel's plans for the future of semiconductors at the company.

In the interview, Mr. Swan has spoken about the technical side of Intel and how the company plans to utilize its Fabs. The first question everyone was wondering was about the state of 10 nm. The node is doing well as three Fabs are ramping up capacity every day, and more products are expected to arrive on that node. Mr. Swan has also talked about outsourcing chip production, to which he responded by outlining the advantage Intel has with its Fabs. He said that outsourcing is what is giving us shortages like AMD and NVIDIA experience, and Intel had much less problems. Additionally, Mr. Swan was asked about the feasibility of new node development. To that, he responded that there is a possibility that Intel could license its competitor's node and produce it in their Fabs.

AMD today announced several senior leadership promotions in support of the company's long-term growth goals. "Our high-performance products and long-term roadmaps have placed AMD on a significant growth trajectory," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "Aligning and expanding our senior leadership team around our highest-priority growth opportunities will continue the momentum we have built across our business in 2021 and beyond."AMD announced two executive vice president promotions:

• Darren Grasby to executive vice president and Chief Sales Officer, responsible for driving adoption of AMD products and delivering a world-class customer experience.
• Devinder Kumar to executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer, responsible for continued strengthening of the company's financial profile.

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that its Board of Directors has unanimously selected Cristiano Amon to succeed Steve Mollenkopf as CEO, effective June 30, 2021. Mollenkopf informed the Board of his decision to retire as CEO following 26 years with the Company. Amon, who has worked at Qualcomm since 1995, is currently President of the Company. Mollenkopf will continue his employment with the Company as a strategic advisor for a period of time.

Mollenkopf, 52, became CEO in March of 2014. He began his career as an engineer and, for nearly three decades, has helped define and lead Qualcomm's strategy and technology roadmap. His work helped propel smartphones into the mainstream and made Qualcomm a leader in 3G, 4G and now 5G, and he also oversaw the expansion into new industry segments such as the Internet of Things (IoT), RF Front End and Automotive. He was also instrumental in the Company's rise as a smartphone technology supplier. In addition, Mollenkopf successfully guided the Company through a number of extraordinary circumstances and challenges and begins the CEO transition process with the Company stabilized and well-positioned to continue to grow and drive value.

Tachyum Inc. today announced that it is signing early adopter customers for the software emulation system for its Prodigy Universal Processor, customers may begin the process of native software development (i.e. using Prodigy Instruction Set Architecture) and porting applications to run on Prodigy. Prodigy software emulation systems will be available at the end of January 2021.

Customers and partners can use Prodigy's software emulation for evaluation, development and debug, and with it, they can begin to transition existing applications that demand high performance and low power to run optimally on Prodigy processors. Pre-built systems include a Prodigy emulator, native Linux, toolchains, compilers, user mode applications, x86, ARM and RISC-V emulators. Software updates will be issued as needed.

AMD has just had quite an amazing year. From the launch of the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs based on Zen 3 architecture to RDNA 2 based graphics cards, the company has been delivering new solutions in a timely manner. With the upcoming tech conference being CES, we are wondering which companies are going to hold their keynotes virtually. Thanks to the official CES website, we have confirmation that AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su will hold a virtual keynote with the goal of "presenting the AMD vision for the future of research, education, work, entertainment, and gaming, including a portfolio of high-performance computing and graphics solutions." That could mean that we could possibly see some new directions for the company and how AMD plans to develop next-generation computing solutions, so stay tuned for more interesting information coming your way on January 11th, when CES kicks-off.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, made October 10, 2020 a day to remember for the global gaming community. Fans across the world tuned in to the inaugural RazerCon to watch Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan's live mixed-reality keynote - a one-of-a-kind interactive session hosted against the iconic Singapore skyline. This was followed by Razer panels on new and unannounced products, and exclusive content showcases and giveaways from game studios such as Romero Games, Perfect World Entertainment, Paradox Interactive and technology partners such as Intel, NVIDIA and Western Digital.

The event was a huge hit with the fans, peaking at over 1 million concurrent viewers with a total of more than 250,000 hours viewed and 175 million impressions across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. In a true celebration of all things gaming, highly decorated veterans of the industry, including Brenda and John Romero, and Haz Dullul, presented their newest projects, whilst leading gaming celebrities CloakZy, CourageJD, PaladinAmber and many others engaged with the community during their sessions.

AMD in its October 8 online launch event for the Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" processors, provided a teaser of the company's next flagship graphics card slotted in the Radeon RX 6000 series. This particular SKU has been referred to by company CEO Lisa Su as "Big Navi," meaning it could be the top part from AMD's upcoming client GPU lineup. As part of the teaser, Su held up the reference design card, and provided three performance numbers of the card as tested on a machine powered by a Ryzen 9 5900X "Zen 3" processor. We compared these performance numbers, obtained at 4K UHD, with our own testing data for the games, to see how the card compares to other current-gen cards in its class. Our testing data for one of the games is from the latest RTX 30-series reviews, find details of our test bed here. We obviously have a different CPU since the 5900X is unreleased, but use the highest presets in our testing.

With "Borderlands 3" at 4K, with "badass" performance preset and DirectX 12 renderer, AMD claims a frame-rate of 61 FPS. We tested the game with its DirectX 12 renderer in our dedicated performance review (test bed details here). AMD's claimed performance ends up 45.9 percent higher than that of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti as tested by us, which yields 41.8 FPS on our test bed. The RTX 3080 ends up 15.24 percent faster than Big Navi, with 70.3 FPS. It's important to note here that AMD may be using a different/lighter test scene than us, since we don't use internal benchmark tools of games, and design our own test scenes. It's also important to note that we tested Borderlands 3 with DirectX 12 only in the game's launch-day review, and use the DirectX 11 renderer in our regular VGA reviews.

NVIDIA today announced that it is building the United Kingdom's most powerful supercomputer, which it will make available to U.K. healthcare researchers using AI to solve pressing medical challenges, including those presented by COVID-19.

Expected to come online by year end, the "Cambridge-1" supercomputer will be an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD system capable of delivering more than 400 petaflops of AI performance and 8 petaflops of Linpack performance, which would rank it No. 29 on the latest TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. It will also rank among the world's top 3 most energy-efficient supercomputers on the current Green500 list.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced Dr. Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD and an accomplished leader in advancing semiconductor technology, has been named the 2020 recipient of SIA's highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award. SIA presents the Noyce Award annually in recognition of a leader who has made outstanding contributions to the semiconductor industry in technology or public policy. Dr. Su will accept the award at the SIA Leadership Forum and Award Celebration, a virtual event that will take place on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020.

"A tremendous leader in our industry, Lisa Su has successfully advanced leading-edge semiconductor and high-performance computing technologies throughout her career as an accomplished business executive and engineer," said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. "Lisa's outstanding achievements have significantly strengthened the semiconductor industry and America's global technology leadership, and she has inspired and opened doors for countless others in tech along the way. On behalf of the SIA board of directors, it is my pleasure to announce Lisa as the 2020 Robert N. Noyce Award recipient in recognition of her impressive accomplishments."

Social media is abuzz with a screengrab of a regional webpage of the NVIDIA website purporting a "GeForce RTX 3090 CEO Edition" graphics card. Positioned a notch above the "Founders Edition," this $3,499 card, if even remotely real, could be a limited edition product. The screengrab references "48 GB of G6X" memory. We're not sure how this is even possible. The RTX 3090 already uses 8 Gbit GDDR6X chips, piggybacking two chips per 32-bit memory channel, unless Micron has done the unthinkable by launching a 16 Gbit G6X chip within 2020. Frankly, we're very interested to see how the next-gen Quadro RTX even achieves its alleged 48 GB of GDDR6.

That aside, the alloy frame now comes with a gold finish. We wonder if memory and a fancy trim is all that NVIDIA is asking the extra 2 Grand for, or if it even maxed out the "GA102" ASIC (there are two more TPCs left to unlock). As for the name "CEO Edition," there have been instances of tech CEOs flexing their vanity on limited edition products. Limited edition Ryzen and Radeon products, for example, bear the AMD CEO's signature. So the name "CEO Edition" by itself isn't implausible. Just not with these specs, and not this price.

NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) today announced a definitive agreement under which NVIDIA will acquire Arm Limited from SBG and the SoftBank Vision Fund (together, "SoftBank") in a transaction valued at $40 billion. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to NVIDIA's non-GAAP gross margin and non-GAAP earnings per share.

The combination brings together NVIDIA's leading AI computing platform with Arm's vast ecosystem to create the premier computing company for the age of artificial intelligence, accelerating innovation while expanding into large, high-growth markets. SoftBank will remain committed to Arm's long-term success through its ownership stake in NVIDIA, expected to be under 10 percent.

Today, Epic Games has decided to file a lawsuit against both Apple and Google after both companies removed Fortnite form their platform app stores (Google Play and Apple App Store). Firstly, Apple has decided to remove the Fortnite app to form its App Store because the game violated the company's policy that all in-game payments must go through the Apple App Store system, instead of them being processed directly. That means that Apple can also apply its 30% cut on all the payments made in-game. After Apple has revoked the Fortnite app, Epic Games has decided to file a lawsuit that aims to fight the company's monopoly and make the iOS platform more developer-friendly. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that Epic will not seek or accept any special deal that Apple may offer, but rather wants to fight for all developers.

Just hours after Apple decided to pull the Fortnite game from its App Store, Google has also removed the game from its Google Play Store. Google's Play Store policy about in-app payments says that all games must use Google Play in-app billing if they want to process payments, so Fortnite was pulled from it as well. In light of that move, Epic Games has also filed a lawsuit against Google on the same terms. The company wants to fight both Apple and Google in court and make them be more developer-friendly, especially Apple. We have to wait and see how the case progresses. Being that Apple is almost a $2 trillion company, it can surely afford lots of good lawyers, just as Google will. We want to express our support for Epic Games for going in the right direction, as we do need more open ecosystems.

In a recent interview with GameSpot, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney claimed that the free game giveaways run on the Epic Games Store such as Sid Meier's Civilization VI and Grand Theft Auto V can lead to increased sales of the games on other platforms. Tim Sweeney believes that because many of the games given away may not have been considered by most players leading to increased sales on alternate platforms according to some developers.

Tim Sweeney said, "You're not going to go out and buy—If you're not into games like Satisfactory, you're not going to go out and spend money to buy Satisfactory. But if you get it for free you realize it's an awesome game. People have discovered a lot of great games that way."

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick sounded very positive about Google Stadia just one year ago, saying he was "pretty optimistic" about the service. Zelnick said "being able to play our games on any device whatsoever around the world, and to do it with low latency, well that's very compelling if that can be delivered," about the service in May 2019.

In a recent interview last week Zelnick has acknowledged the lackluster success of the platform saying "the launch of Stadia has been slow," and "I think there was some overpromising on what the technology could deliver and some consumer disappointment as a result." Zelnick questioned the point of such a service when the games are selling for 60 USD+ and a console of similar performance without any of the drawbacks of an online service can be had for just 300 USD. It will be interesting to see the fate of the collection of game streaming services that have popped up over the last few years.

NVIDIA is rumored to introduce their next-generation Ampere architecture very soon, at its GTC event happening on May 14th. We're expecting to see an announcement for the successor to the company's DGX lineup of pre-built compute systems—using the upcoming Ampere architecture of course. At the heart of these machines, will be a new GA100 GPU, that's rumored to be very fast. A while ago, we've seen NVIDIA register a trademark for "DGX A100", which seems to be a credible name for these systems featuring the new Tesla A100 graphics cards.

Today, NVIDIA's CEO was spotted in an unlisted video that's published on the official NVIDIA YouTube channel. It shows him pulling out of the oven what he calls "world's largest GPU", that he has been cooking all the time. Featuring eight Tesla A100 GPUs, this DGX A100 system appears to be based on a similar platform design as previous DGX systems, where the GPU is a socketed SXM2 design. This looks like a viable upgrade path for owners of previous DGX systems—just swap out the GPUs and enjoy higher performance. It's been a while since we have seen Mr. Huang appear with his leather jacket, and in the video, he isn't wearing one, is this the real Jensen? Jokes aside, you can check out the video below, if it is not taken down soon.Update May 12th, 5 pm UTC: NVIDIA has listed the video and it is not unlisted anymore.

NVIDIA has announced that their annual GTC (Graphics Technology Conference) keynote will be held on May 14th, via a fully online distribution through YouTube set for 6 a.m. PST. Originally canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NVIDIA planned to make a digital-only event covering GTC on the same day of March 23rd, but elected to postpone it since "there were no announcements that were too critical not to be able to be told at a later time". The "Get AMPED" catchphrase does seem to point to some Ampere announcements, though, and the entire PC enthusiast community very much thinks that is one critical announcement.

The GTC 2020 note will be a recorded announcement led by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. The leather jacket-toting CEO will highlight the company's latest innovations in AI, high performance computing, data science, autonomous machines, healthcare and graphics during the recorded keynote, which will be made available, on demand, on YouTube. Starting on May 19th, though, the graphics technology event will continue via live webinars, demos, and recorded talks discussing the very latest in AI, HPC, data science, graphics, and more.

NVIDIA was supposed to launch its next-generation "Ampere" lineup of server-class GPUs at this year's GTC event. However, NVIDIA's president and CEO, Jensen Huang, shared the news that NVIDIA will now be showcasing the important GTC news it has prepared, but instead will only provide online materials from developers and researchers from all over the world. In the blog update, Mr. Huang said the following: "We have exciting products and news to share with you. But this isn't the right time. We're going to hold off on sharing our GTC news for now. That way, our employees, partners, the media and analysts who follow us, and our customers around the world can focus on staying safe and reducing the spread of the virus."

"We will still stream tons of great content from researchers and developers who have prepared great talks. This is a time to focus on our family, our friends, our community. Our employees are working from home. Many hourly workers will not need to work but they'll all be fully paid. Stay safe everyone. We will get through this together.", he added. While we won't get any new GPUs judging by this announcement, we can expect to see them once this situation is resolved.

Intel Corporation announced today that at the company's Jan. 15 board meeting Andy D. Bryant stepped down as chairman and the board elected lead independent director Dr. Omar Ishrak to succeed Bryant as an independent chairman, effective immediately. Intel also announced that Alyssa Henry was elected to Intel's board. Her election marks the seventh new independent director added to Intel's board since the beginning of 2016.

Bryant will remain on the board through the end of Intel's 2020 annual stockholders' meeting. He had previously notified the board in March 2019 that he did not intend to stand for re-election at this year's meeting. Bryant made the decision to leave the role now in order to facilitate an effective transition.