SiFive is a team of one of the pioneering engineers that helped create RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) and helped the ecosystem grow. The company has been an active member of the RISC-V community and contributed its guidance on various RISC-V extensions. However, according to sources close to More Than Moore, the company is reportedly downsizing its team, and layoffs are imminent. The impact of the downsizing is about 20% of the workforce, which equals around 120-130 staff. However, that is only part of the story. SiFive is reportedly also canceling its pre-designed core portfolio and shifting focus on custom-design core IP that it would sell to customers. This is in line with the slowing demand for their pre-designed offerings and the growing demand for AI-enhanced custom silicon. The company issued a statement for Moore Than Moore.

SiFive PR for Moore Than MooreAs we adjust to the rapidly changing semiconductor end markets, SiFive is realigning across all of our teams and geographies to better take advantage of the opportunities ahead, reduce operational complexities and increase our ability to respond quickly to customer product requirements. Unfortunately, as a result some positions were eliminated last week. The employees are being offered severance and outplacement assistance. SiFive continues to be excited about the momentum and long-term outlook for our business and RISC-V.

Additionally, there was another statement for More Than Moore, which you can see entirely below.

CD Projekt declared in an investor regulatory announcement (issued on May 11) that its troubled "Project Sirius" multiplayer game was back on track with a renewed development focus. Their briefing is titled: "New framework for Project Sirius, decision concerning partial reversal of the impairment allowance for 2022, and write-off of part of the development expenditures incurred in Q1 2023." As reported back in March, the Polish gaming group made the difficult choice to reboot its multiplayer focused Witcher title and write-off a significant chunk of the development budget. Last week's update seems to indicate that their North American studio, The Molasses Flood, is still involved in the making of Project Sirius and that a smaller chunk of project expenditure has been written off in the mean time.

The company's investor announcement coincided with emerging rumors of employee layoffs - gaming news outlets started to pick up on social media declarations last Friday (May 12). Yesterday CD Projekt confirmed that the refocused and restarted development process has resulted in a round of headcount cuts on both sides of the Atlantic. In a statement issued to PC Gamer, a company spokesperson says: "Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it - mainly on The Molasses Flood's side. The concrete number of employees we parted ways with is 21 team members in the US and 8 in Poland (working on the project outside of the US)."

Following the recent Q1 2023 financial report with declining revenue, Intel is restructuring its Client Computing Group (CCG) and Data Center Group (DCG). These two units were hit the hardest, with 38 and 39% downturns, respectively. According to Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis, and a statement from Tom's Hardware, we have information that Intel will be conducting budget cuts to CCG and DCG, with some layoffs. As Dylan Patel notes, Intel will cut CCG and DCG budgets by 10%, resulting in as much as a 20% reduction of the workforce inside those two groups. Additionally, this was supported by Intel's spokesperson, who issued a statement for Tom's Hardware stating the following:

Intel SpokespersonIntel is working to accelerate its strategy while navigating a challenging macro-economic environment. We are focused on identifying cost reductions and efficiency gains through multiple initiatives, including some business and function-specific workforce reductions in areas across the company.

We continue to invest in areas core to our business, including our U.S.-based manufacturing operations, to ensure we are well-positioned for long-term growth. These are difficult decisions, and we are committed to treating impacted employees with dignity and respect.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly known as Facebook) has begun implementing widespread staff layoffs across multiple company departments. The cutback operation was announced last month, with the social media giant targeting 10,000 positions (throughout 2023) in an effort to become more efficient. 13,000 staffers were released from their jobs last year, representing 13% of the workforce at the time - advertising revenues had declined in 2022 and Meta said that the change was required in order to navigate economic downturns. A repeat of that sentiment has been issued this year and two internal games development studios have been affected quite heavily by the latest layoff initiative, reports suggest. Ready at Dawn and Downpour Interactive are getting a lot of press coverage - due to former staffers divulging details of Meta's cutbacks via social media.

Thomas Griebel, a (now former) Senior engine programmer at Ready at Dawn, took to Twitter two days ago and made claim that: "One third of the studio was laid off today, including the studio head." He also observes that the studio has been shrinking over time: "Also lost some really great people just due to attrition. Think we're down almost (down to a) half since when I started in August (2022)." Former Ready at Dawn technical designer Colin McInerney has also released a string of information about co-workers being let go. Michael Tsarouhas (senior designer) and Daan van Zelst (level designer) have confirmed that they were released from their roles at Downpour Interactive.

During a round of layoffs totaling some 10,000 employees Microsoft has kicked one of its AI ethics teams to the curb. This development comes off the heels of high profile launches for generative AI systems, extended partnerships, and further integrations of AI services into Edge and Bing. The team was not large, having been cut down in size back in October during a reorganization, but still made an impact within Microsoft as a mediator for AI policy and implementations. While the larger Office of Responsible AI that dictates the rules of play for the use of AI within the company remains intact, sources from within stated that the ethics and society team played a more pivotal role in ensuring the rules were applied during design and development of products.

These events ring familiar tones to those which occurred at Google in 2020, when ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru was removed after publishing a critical overview of the large language models now popular in products such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. This cascaded through the company as several other leading members left amidst the turmoil. These events marred Google's reputation and raised concerns over the company's credibility regarding responsible use of AI, and as we're still mentioning it have had lasting impacts on their brand.

Google's chief executive officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai today uploaded a blog post titled "A difficult decision to set us up for the future." This message highlights the decision to lay off around 12,000 working staff from Google's fleet of employees. That includes the US and international teams represented in the figure mentioned above. While we don't have information about the specific headcount deficit per country, US employees are expected to be hit first and international employees second, as the company has to comply with local state laws in which it employs the staff. The figure represents about 6% of its total staff. Given the recent economic climate and a slight downturn in tech, Google is joining other big companies in cutting head counts to adapt to the new economy. Below you can read a piece of Google's announcement.

Sundar PichaiI have some difficult news to share. We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles. We've already sent a separate email to employees in the US who are affected. In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices. This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with. I'm deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.

The rest of the announcement can be read in the Google blog post.

Despite reported record revenues of US$2.1 billion in the third quarter of this year, as well as a record net income of US$336 million, GlobalFoundries is said to be cutting its workforce by as many as 800 people. The job cuts are reported by VTDigger, a local newspaper in Vermont, where GlobalFoundries headquarters are located. According to the paper, GlobalFoundries are looking at cutting back on staff at all its global operations, but it's currently now known where the biggest cuts will take place. According to VTDigger, GlobalFoundries has around 14,000 employees globally, which makes the headcount cut around 5.7 percent of its workforce.

Based on comments by an anonymous employee, it was a small number of job cuts that were initially expected inside the GlobalFoundries. It's possible that contractors will be the ones being sacrificed in the first place, as the company has no less than 800 contractors just at its headquarters in Vermont, plus another 2,000 full time employees. GlobalFoundries has fabs in Vermont, New York, Singapore and Germany, but based on the comments by the employee, it's most likely that the major job cuts will take place in the US and Singapore, due to Germany's stricter employment laws. The job cuts are expected to start taking place this month.

Magic Leap the augmented-reality startup has raised over 2 billion dollars from investor such as Alphabet and Alibaba to develop AR products. In a recent blog post by CEO Rony Abovitz titled "Charting a New Course" he announces that the company has come under financial hardship due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and will focus all of its resources on the enterprise market and the launch of Magic Leap 2. This restructuring will involve Magic Leap abandoning its consumer developments in the near-term and significant layoffs, Bloomberg reports layoffs may be 1000 which would result in the companies workforce halving.

The times have been rough for the Activision Blizzard juggernaut, as changing market conditions and lack of differentiated IP launches have led the company into a sort of stagnant position in the market - in both launches and revenue sources. The recent split from Destiny developer Bungie took out a bite from one of the company's additional streams of revenue amidst dwindling World of Warcraft subscriptions (after the usual spike post launch for Battle of Azeroth) and the lack of any new sources of income in the close future. This saw the company's stock valuation coming down, and was bookended by the recent layoff of some 8% total of the company's workforce (around 800 out of its 9,600 employees). Reports peg these as being mostly outside of the game development workforce, though, which could give traction to the report that the company is doubling down on IP-related development, instead of shying away from it - a sensible move, if you'll ask me.

Activision Blizzard COO Coddy Johnson reiterated Blizzard's fantastic IP reserves, and wants the company to achieve a higher cadence in content releases that follow the type of high-quality launches they achieve in their World of Warcraft expansions - but on other, more differentiated revenue sources. Johnson also reiterated more resources being put to work on the Diablo franchise, saying that "Diablo's development headcount will grow substantially", with "The teams are working on several projects for the franchise as well as the global launch of Diablo Immortal."

Telltale Games, best known for its episodic series of videogames focused on single-player experiences, has announced a restructuring within its organization. The move, which aims to "make the company more competitive as a developer and publisher of groundbreaking story-driven gaming experiences with an emphasis on high quality in the years ahead," will see the laying off of 90 staff members (around 25% of its workforce,) effective immediately. Luckily for us gamers, it appears that the restructuring won't affect any previously announced projects, which include a second season for breakout game The Wolf Among Us.

"Our industry has shifted in tremendous ways over the past few years. The realities of the environment we face moving forward demand we evolve, as well, reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team," said Telltale Games CEO Pete Hawley. "I'd like to express our respect for all the contributions that these incredibly talented artists, storytellers and more have made to this company, and that this decision is in no way a reflection on the quality or dedication of their work, " he added. "We have made available our full career assistance services to help our affected colleagues and friends - and their families - navigate this difficult transition as quickly as possible."