Intel and Google are working together to drive high performance computing (HPC) forward on Google Cloud with the release of the Cloud HPC Toolkit. This new resource provides access to tools from the Intel oneAPI Base and HPC Toolkits to optimize performance through Intel Select Solutions for Simulations & Modeling. These new tools improve compile times, speed of results and offer multi-vendor acceleration in SYCL.

"Using Cloud HPC Toolkit with an Intel Select Solutions for Simulations & Modeling blueprint brings the added benefit of automatically spinning up a hardware-software configuration that has been rigorously tested and optimized for real-world performance, eliminating guesswork," said Ilias Katsardis, HPC solution lead, Google.

AMD today announced new Confidential virtual machines (VMs) on the existing the N2D and C2D VMs on Google Cloud, all powered by AMD EPYC processors. These VMs extend the AMD EPYC processor portfolio of Confidential Computing on Google Cloud with the performance of 3rd Gen EPYC processors in compute-optimized VMs.

A key Confidential Computing component provided by AMD EPYC processors is AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV), part of AMD Infinity Guard. This advanced hardware-based security feature encrypts full system memory and individual virtual machine memory as well as isolating the VM memory from the hypervisor, without dramatically impacting performance. With the expansion of Confidential Computing in N2D and C2D VMs, Google Cloud customers now have access to advanced hardware enabled security features powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors that will help protect sensitive, wide-variety workloads.

Google Cloud and AMD today announced a technology partnership in which AMD will run electronic design automation (EDA) for its chip-design workloads on Google Cloud, further extending the on-premises capabilities of AMD data centers. AMD will also leverage Google Cloud's global networking, storage, artificial intelligence, and machine learning capabilities to further improve upon its hybrid and multicloud strategy for these EDA workloads.

Scale, elasticity, and efficient utilization of resources play critical roles in chip design, particularly given that the demand for compute processing grows with each node advancement. To remain flexible and scale easily, AMD will add Google Cloud's newest compute-optimized C2D VM instance, powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, to its suite of resources focused on EDA workloads. By leveraging Google Cloud, AMD anticipates being able to run more designs in parallel, giving the team more flexibility to manage short-term compute demands, without reducing allocation on long-term projects.

Acer today debuted its new high-performance Acer Chromebook Spin 514 convertible and durable Chromebook, powered by new AMD Ryzen 5000 C-series processors based on AMD "Zen 3" architecture and AMD Radeon graphics, also launched today. "Acer's continued partnership with AMD has resulted in award-winning Chromebooks that deliver the latest in powerful performance in thin-and-light designs," said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. "Acer Chromebook customers have pushed the boundaries for what they do with their Chromebook, and can do even more with the new Ryzen-powered Acer Chromebook Spin 514."

"We're proud to partner with Acer to introduce the new AMD processor-powered Acer Chromebook Spin 514," said Saeid Moshkelani, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. "With the leadership performance of Ryzen 5000 C-Series processors, Acer's latest Chromebook is equipping consumers with technology that is putting collaboration and efficiency at the forefront of every classroom, office and creative space."

In a joint effort to make the web more secure and usable for all, Apple, Google and Microsoft today announced plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. The new capability will allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy passwordless sign-ins to consumers across devices and platforms. Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services. This practice can lead to costly account takeovers, data breaches, and even stolen identities. While password managers and legacy forms of two-factor authentication offer incremental improvements, there has been industry-wide collaboration to create sign-in technology that is more convenient and more secure.

The expanded standards-based capabilities will give websites and apps the ability to offer an end-to-end passwordless option. Users will sign in through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN. This new approach protects against phishing and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS.

With hybrid working environments now the new norm for many companies, remote employees need every tool available to help keep them productive at home, while businesses also need intuitive equipment for when staff does come to the office. To help bridge the gap between home and office, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, is pleased to introduce six new printers designed to enhance productivity for hybrid workers and small businesses. These models include new features to help meet the latest market needs for convenience, workflow efficiency, and security. "Canon is proud to deliver solutions designed to meet new customer needs through the continued expansion of the MAXIFY and imageCLASS printer lines," says Isao "Sammy" Kobayashi, senior vice president and general manager of Canon U.S.A., Inc. "These new printers are designed to improve efficiency for small and home offices, while being versatile, eco-friendly, and time-saving tools."

The new MAXIFY GX5020 printer is an extension of the Canon MegaTank Printer lineup utilizing a high-volume continuous ink supply system, which can significantly reduce ink costs by utilizing high-volume ink bottles. This technology also allows users to focus on their work and not get distracted by frequently replacing ink cartridges; and when bottles do need refilling, it is an easy-to-fill, "no mess" process. The MAXIFY GX5020 printer can hold up to 350 sheets of paper.

Tachyum today announced it has completed validation of its Prodigy Universal Processor and software ecosystem with the operating system FreeBSD, and completed the Prodigy instruction set architecture (ISA) for FreeBSD porting. FreeBSD powers modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms in environments that value performance, stability, and security. It is the platform of choice for many of the busiest websites and the most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.

The validation of FreeBSD extends Tachyum's support for open-source operating systems and tools, including Linux, Yocto Project, PHP, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Apache, QEMU, Git, RabbitMQ, and more.

The global smartphone applications processor (AP) market grew 23 percent to $30.8 billion in 2021, according to Strategy Analytics' Handset Component Technologies (HCT) service report. According to this Strategy Analytics' Handset Component Technologies (HCT) research report, " Smartphone Apps Processor Market Share Tracker Q4 2021: Qualcomm Increases Revenue Share Lead", Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, Samsung LSI and Unisoc grabbed the top-five revenue share ranking spots in the smartphone applications processor (AP) market in 2021.

Sravan Kundojjala, author of the report and Director of Handset Component Technologies service at Strategy Analytics, commented, "For the first time on an annual basis, MediaTek overtook Qualcomm in units and established over 75 million unit-lead in smartphone APs 2021. MediaTek capitalized on Qualcomm's defocus on mid and low tier 4G LTE APs and gained volume share. Despite the loss of unit share crown, Qualcomm exited 2021 with over 43% higher revenue than MediaTek, thanks to an increased mix of higher-priced premium and high-tier APs. Both companies performed well in the 5G AP segment and posted a 13-year high in their AP average selling prices (ASPs)."

Designing Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning hardware accelerators takes effort from hardware engineers in conjunction with scientists working in the AI/ML area itself. A few years ago, we started seeing AI incorporated into parts of electronic design automation (EDA) software tools, helping chip designers speed up the process of creating hardware. What we were "used to" seeing AI do are just a couple of things like placement and routing. And having that automated is a huge deal. However, it looks like the power of AI for chip design is not going to stop there. Researchers at Google and UC Berkeley have made a research project that helps AI design and develop AI-tailored accelerators smaller and faster than anything humans made.

In the published paper, researchers present PRIME - a framework that created AI processors based on a database of blueprints. The PRIME framework feeds off an offline database containing accelerator designs and their corresponding performance metrics (e.g., latency, power, etc.) to design next-generation hardware accelerators. According to Google, PRIME can do so without further hardware simulation and has processors ready for use. As per the paper, PRIME improves performance upon state-of-the-art simulation-driven methods by as much as 1.2x-1.5x. It also reduces the required total simulation time by 93% and 99%, respectively. The framework is also capable of architecting accelerators for unseen applications.

Intel, along with Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE), AMD, Arm, Google Cloud, Meta, Microsoft Corp., Qualcomm Inc., Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have announced the establishment of an industry consortium to promote an open die-to-die interconnect standard called Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe). Building on its work on the open Advanced Interface Bus (AIB), Intel developed the UCIe standard and donated it to the group of founding members as an open specification that defines the interconnect between chiplets within a package, enabling an open chiplet ecosystem and ubiquitous interconnect at the package level.

"Integrating multiple chiplets in a package to deliver product innovation across market segments is the future of the semiconductor industry and a pillar of Intel's IDM 2.0 strategy," said Sandra Rivera, executive vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Artificial Intelligence Group at Intel. "Critical to this future is an open chiplet ecosystem with key industry partners working together under the UCIe Consortium toward a common goal of transforming the way the industry delivers new products and continues to deliver on the promise of Moore's Law."

Samsung Electronics today announced its new Galaxy Tab S8 series, the Galaxy Tab S8 and S8+, and the first-ever Tab S8 Ultra tablet in the lineup with the biggest, boldest display and most powerful performance Galaxy Tab S has ever offered. Sophisticated hardware, premium productivity features and the seamless ecosystem Galaxy users count on are combined in a single portable productivity powerhouse, designed to be your perfect companion in an always-on, video-first world. The Galaxy Tab S8 series offers you the freedom and flexibility you deserve to work and play anywhere like never before.

More than ever, we rely on tablets for video calling and streaming. Each Galaxy Tab S8 offers an improved video conferencing experience with ultra-wide front cameras, a three-microphone setup and intelligent auto-framing technology for a truly professional video call experience. It offers revolutionary multitasking capabilities with enhanced Multi-Active Windows and Samsung DeX, safe and easy file sharing with password-protected Quick Share, and powerful productivity with the new, super-fast 4 nm processor and a smoother than ever S Pen in the box. All this is packed into the thinnest and toughest Armor aluminium body for greater portability, and to enhance your mobile experience further, Galaxy Tab S8 series works hand-in-hand with your full ecosystem of Galaxy devices, with features like Second Screen and Buds Auto Switch.

Today Lenovo announced new additions to its broad education portfolio designed to enhance learning efficiencies in a new age for education. The new devices are purpose-built to meet the needs of modern in-person and distance-learning. The all-new Lenovo 10w Tablet running Windows 11 is powered by the Snapdragon 7c compute platform to enable an Always On, Always Connected computing experience, balancing the power and performance students expect and the mobile computing experiences they need to help them succeed in modernized learning. The new Lenovo 13w Yoga offers the flexibility of a convertible device with AMD Ryzen 5000 U-Series processors for mobile up to an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, and can include options to boost teacher and student engagement, device protection and improved connectivity.

According to UNESCO, more than 1.5 billion students have been impacted by the pandemic and many countries have been affected by extended school closures. Although classes are thankfully reopening, many continue to endure disrupted agendas and at the time of writing more than 35 million learners are still unable to benefit from classroom instruction. The longer-term focus needs to be on learning recovery and returning the trajectory beyond pre-Covid levels. A recent UNESCO report points out that we collectively have an opportunity to reinvent education to be more resilient, equitable and efficient in delivering learning for all. Institutions need to invest in structured learning programs that provide access to technology that can amplify classroom-based experiences. The tools need to be dynamic to support distance learning solutions and computer-assisted learning to help maximize education continuity. As a technology provider, Lenovo is committed to partnering with customers to develop and deliver innovative solutions to enhance learning today and into the future.

Historically, AMD was working with two semiconductor manufacturing companies: TSMC and GlobalFoundries. According to the latest report coming from Gokul Hariharan, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, AMD could soon tap another semiconductor manufacturer to produce the company's growing list of processors. As the report indicates, AMD could start working with the South Korean giant Samsung and utilize the firm's 4LPP process that represents a second generation of the low-power 4 nm silicon node. This specific node is allegedly the choice for AMD APUs designed to fit inside Google's Chromebook devices, which require low-power designs to achieve excellent battery life.

AMD could realize this move in late 2022, as Samsung's 4LPP node goes into mass production at that point. It means that we could see the first Samsung-made AMD APUs in late 2022 or the beginning of 2023. And apparently, the two company's collaboration could be much more significant as AMD is evaluating Samsung's 3 nm nodes for other products spanning more segments in 2023/2024. There are no official, definitive agreements between the two, so we have to wait for more information and official responses from these parties. Anyways, if AMD decides to produce a part of its lineup at Samsung, the remaining TSMC capacity would ensure that the supply of every incoming chip remains sufficient.

Today, Adobe kicked off Adobe MAX 2021, the largest creativity conference in the world. The company delivered innovation across Creative Cloud flagship applications and introduced new collaboration capabilities to fuel new levels of creativity for millions of customers worldwide, from students to social media creators to creative professionals.

At Adobe MAX, the company announced major updates across Creative Cloud flagship applications powered by Adobe Sensei, accelerated the video creation process with the addition of Frame.io and advanced 3D and immersive authoring abilities. Adobe also previewed new collaboration capabilities with the introduction of Creative Cloud Canvas, Creative Cloud Spaces and betas of Photoshop and Illustrator on the web.

BAPCo, a non-profit consortium of leading PC hardware manufacturers, today added support for the Android OS for CrossMark. Released in March, CrossMark has rapidly established itself as a cross-architecture performance benchmark that simplifies system performance and responsiveness measurement using common and relevant workloads for Windows, iOS, macOS and Android. CrossMark is based on widely used open-source applications to assess system performance scores in the areas of Productivity, Creativity and Responsiveness.

Adding Android support to the ecosystem allows CrossMark to accurately and objectively measure both system performance and responsiveness, which has traditionally been a time-consuming, difficult process to billions of new devices. CrossMark allows users to quickly install the software natively on their system and be up and running in a matter of minutes - with measurement runs as quick as 5 minutes to complete. At its conclusion, CrossMark reports an overall system performance and responsiveness score, as well as several key sub-scores indicative of typical day-to-day system performance. With over 2,200+ submitted and published results on BAPCo's online database users can compare their scores to a wide range of systems across multiple architectures.

Acer today debuted four new Chromebooks that meet a range of customer needs, ranging from home and business users to hybrid workers and students. Equipped with the latest processors and sought-after features such as reliable Wi-Fi 6, video conferencing technology and durable designs, the new Acer Chromebooks keep customers connected, productive and entertained.

"Acer's expansive line of Chromebooks means that we're well-equipped to meet any sort of customer need—from display size, processors, durability, connectivity and more," said James Lin, General Manager, Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. "Whether a customer needs a device for work, school or entertainment, we've got a Chromebook with exactly the features they're looking for."

Tile, the pioneer in finding technology, introduces a new lineup that builds on the superior features consumers around the world rely on to keep track of their things. Available today, the lineup includes sleek new designs for a wide range of uses, increased finding range, louder ring and a new way for lost items to be found and returned. The company will also be introducing highly accurate Point and Locate finding with the launch of the Ultra-Wideband enabled Tile Ultra as well as a new Scan and Secure safety feature early next year.

Tile is built for everyone and everything, with a platform agnostic app and multiple form factors that attach to just about anything right out of the box. At a time when consumers are faced with even more choice within the category, Tile continues to see significant growth, a testament to its wide appeal. In the first half of 2021, Tile has grown revenue over 50 percent, and shows no sign of slowing down.

Atari announced today another step into establishing the all-new Atari VCS Videogame Computer System as a capable and fully-featured small form-factor PC for the living room. Paired with a robust modern indie and retro video game selection and streaming applications, the Atari VCS now provides users with the ultimate productivity powerhouse: Google Workspace.

Atari VCS owners can take advantage of the system's desk-to-living room versatility with easy access to Gmail, Calendar, Slides, Sheets, Docs, and Drive—all accessible right from the Atari VCS dashboard—and controllable with the Atari VCS Companion app or a traditional mouse and keyboard.

As business professionals continue to navigate new work environments - in an office, at home, or a mix of both - having proper technology and display tools are essential for maintaining team productivity and collaboration. Dedicated to delivering top-quality projection that is also versatile for a range of professional environments, today Epson introduced the new Epson 880X 3LCD 1080p smart portable projector. Compact and equipped with a convenient carrying case, the 880X meets a variety of on-the-go business display needs. Additionally, with Android TV and built-in Chromecast, users can easily switch it into a streaming machine for epic entertainment virtually anywhere.

"As the dynamics of work environments continue to shift, it's important that business professionals have the proper tools to set them up for success in any space," said Kenny Tang, product manager, projectors, Epson America, Inc. "The demand for bigger displays has continued throughout the pandemic for both business and home entertainment. The 880X smart projector is ideal for video conferencing and presentations with the added versatility to transform spaces into entertainment hubs."

Denon isn't the first brand most people think of when it comes to in-ear headphones, nor wireless headphones for that matter, but the company has a range of very high-end over-ear headphones in its lineup of products. This might be set to change though, with the company introducing two new sets of TWS earbuds in the shape of the AH-C630W and the AH-C830NCW.

The design appears very similar between the two models and apart from the little silver accent on the bottom of the AH-C830NCW, it's hard to tell the two apart from just looking at them. The main difference between the two is that the AH-C830NCW comes with active noise cancelling, insert detection and Google Fast Pair. Both models use standard dynamic drivers, with the AH-C830NCW having an unusual oval shape that measures 11x10 mm and the AH-C630W using a regular driver with a 10 mm diameter.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported record revenue for the second quarter ended August 1, 2021, of $6.51 billion, up 68 percent from a year earlier and up 15 percent from the previous quarter, with record revenue from the company's Gaming, Data Center and Professional Visualization platforms. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.94, up 276 percent from a year ago and up 24 percent from the previous quarter. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $1.04, up 89 percent from a year ago and up 14 percent from the previous quarter.

"NVIDIA's pioneering work in accelerated computing continues to advance graphics, scientific computing and AI," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Enabled by the NVIDIA platform, developers are creating the most impactful technologies of our time - from natural language understanding and recommender systems, to autonomous vehicles and logistic centers, to digital biology and climate science, to metaverse worlds that obey the laws of physics.

While the server industry transitions to the latest generation of processors based on the x86 platform, the Intel Ice Lake and AMD Milan CPUs entered mass production earlier this year and were shipped to certain customers, such as North American CSPs and telecommunication companies, at a low volume in 1Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. These processors are expected to begin seeing widespread adoption in the server market in 3Q21. TrendForce believes that Ice Lake represents a step-up in computing performance from the previous generation due to its higher scalability and support for more memory channels. On the other hand, the new normal that emerged in the post-pandemic era is expected to drive clients in the server sector to partially migrate to the Ice Lake platform, whose share in the server market is expected to surpass 30% in 4Q21.

In 2016, we launched the first Pixel. Our goal was to give people a more helpful, smarter phone. Over the years, we introduced features like HDR+ and Night Sight, which used artificial intelligence (AI) to create beautiful images with computational photography. In later years, we applied powerful speech recognition models to build Recorder, which can record, transcribe and search for audio clips, all on device.

AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is we've run into computing limitations that prevented us from fully pursuing our mission. So we set about building a technology platform built for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users. We set out to make our own System on a Chip (SoC) to power Pixel 6. And now, years later, it's almost here. Tensor is our first custom-built SoC specifically for Pixel phones, and it will power the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this fall.

AMD and Google Cloud today announced T2D, the first instance in the new family of Tau Virtual Machines (VMs) powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors. According to Google Cloud, the T2D instance offers 56% higher absolute performance and more than 40% higher price performance for scale-out workloads. The Tau VM family provides customers with a leading combination of performance, price, and easy integration. The T2D instances, using the leadership performance of 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, excels at workloads including web servers, containerized micro-services, data logging-processing, large scale Java applications and more.

"At Google Cloud, our customers' compute needs are evolving," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. "By collaborating with AMD, Google Cloud customers can now leverage amazing performance for scale-out applications, with great price-performance, all without compromising x86 compatibility." "We designed 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors to meet the growing demand from cloud and enterprise customers for high-performance, cost-effective solutions with optimal TCO," said AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "We work closely with Google Cloud and are proud they selected AMD to exclusively power the new Tau VM T2D instance which provides customers with powerful new options to run their most demanding scale-out workloads."

A recent Google study led by Mirhoseini et al. and published in Nature details how AI can be leveraged to improve upon semiconductor design practices currently employed - and which are the result of more than 60 years of engineering and physics studies. The paper describes a trained machine-learning 'agent' that can successfully place macro blocks, one by one, into a chip layout. This agent has a brain-inspired architecture known as a deep neural network, and is trained using a paradigm called reinforcement learning - where positive changes to a design are committed to memory as possible solutions, while negative changes are discarded, effectively allowing the neural network to build a decision-tree of sorts that's optimized every step of the way.

The AI isn't applied to every stage of microchip design as of yet, but that will surely change in years to come. For now, the AI is only being employed in the chip floorplanning stage of microchip production, which is actually one of the more painstaking ones. Essentially, microchip designers have to place macro blocks on their semiconductor designs - pre-made arrangements of transistors whose placement relative to one another and to the rest of the chips' components are of seminal importance for performance and efficiency targets. Remember that electric signals have to traverse different chip components to achieve a working semiconductor, and the way these are arranged in the floorplanning stage can have tremendous impact on performance characteristics of a given chip. Image A, below, showcases the tidy design a human engineer would favor - while image B showcases the apparently chaotic nature of the AI's planning.