TSMC today held an inauguration ceremony for its global Research and Development Center in Hsinchu, Taiwan, celebrating the Company's newest hub for bringing the next generations of semiconductor technology into reality with customers, R&D partners in industry and academia, design ecosystem partners, and senior government leaders.

The R&D Center will serve as the new home for TSMC's R&D Organization, including the researchers who will develop TSMC's leading-edge process technology at the 2-nanometer generation and beyond, as well as scientists and scholars blazing the trail with exploratory research into fields such as novel materials and transistor structures. With R&D employees already relocating to their workplaces in the new building, it will be ready for its full complement of more than 7,000 staff by September 2023.

AMD today announced plans for continued growth in India through an approximate $400M investment over the next five years. The planned investment includes a new AMD campus in Bangalore, Karnataka that will serve as the company's largest design center, as well as the addition of approximately 3,000 new engineering roles by the end of 2028. The new AMD campus is expected to open before the end of 2023 and will feature extensive lab space, state-of-the-art collaboration tools and seating configurations designed to foster teamwork. The investment is supported by the various policy initiatives of the Government of India focused on the semiconductor industry.

"We welcome the AMD plan to expand its leading-edge R&D engineering operations in India," said Mr. Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Cabinet Minister for Railways, Telecommunications, Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. "I welcome AMD's decision to set up its largest R&D design center in India and expansion of the India-AMD partnership. It will certainly play an important role in building a world class semiconductor design and innovation ecosystem. It will also provide tremendous opportunities for our large pool of highly skilled semiconductor engineers and researchers and will catalyse PM Narendra Modi's vision of India becoming a global talent hub," said Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

A watershed moment on Nov. 22, 2022, was mostly virtual, yet it shook the foundations of nearly every industry on the planet. On that day, OpenAI released ChatGPT, the most advanced artificial intelligence chatbot ever developed. This set off demand for generative AI applications that help businesses become more efficient, from providing consumers with answers to their questions to accelerating the work of researchers as they seek scientific breakthroughs, and much, much more.

Businesses that previously dabbled in AI are now rushing to adopt and deploy the latest applications. Generative AI—the ability of algorithms to create new text, images, sounds, animations, 3D models and even computer code—is moving at warp speed, transforming the way people work and play. By employing large language models (LLMs) to handle queries, the technology can dramatically reduce the time people devote to manual tasks like searching for and compiling information.

China electric vehicle maker XPENG Motors has announced its new G6 coupe SUV—featuring an NVIDIA-powered intelligent advanced driver assistance system—is now available to the China market. The G6 is XPENG's first model featuring the company's proprietary Smart Electric Platform Architecture (SEPA) 2.0, which aims to reduce development and manufacturing costs and shorten R&D cycles since the modular architecture will be compatible with future models.

The electric SUV also features the XPENG Navigation Guided Pilot (XNGP), a full scenario-based intelligent assisted driving system. It's powered by the cutting-edge NVIDIA DRIVE Orin compute and XPENG's full-stack software developed in-house. The XNGP system first made its debut in the EV maker's flagship G9 SUV, touting a safe, reliable, advanced driving experience behind the wheel.

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."

Intel's software engineers are working on path-traced light simulation and conducting neural graphics research, as documented in a recent company news article, with an ambition to create a more efficient solution for integrated graphics cards. The company's Graphics Research Organization is set to present their path-traced optimizations at SIGGRAPH 2023. Their papers have been showcased at recent EGSR and HPG events. The team is aiming to get iGPUs running path-tracing in real time, by reducing the number of calculations required to simulate light bounces.

The article covers three different techniques, all designed to improve GPU performance: "Across the process of path tracing, the research presented in these papers demonstrates improvements in efficiency in path tracing's main building blocks, namely ray tracing, shading, and sampling. These are important components to make photorealistic rendering with path tracing available on more affordable GPUs, such as Intel Arc GPUs, and a step toward real-time performance on integrated GPUs." Although there is an emphasis on in-house products in the article, Intel's "open source-first mindset" hints that their R&D could be shared with others—NVIDIA and AMD are likely still struggling to make ray tracing practical on their modest graphics card models.

Huawei announced they will launch a complete set of commercial 5.5G network equipment in 2024 at the 5G Advanced Forum during MWC Shanghai 2023. Huawei's Director and President of ICT Products & Solutions Yang Chaobin who made the announcement said the company intends for this launch to mark the beginning of the 5.5G era for the ICT industry.

5G deployment progressed rapidly over the past four years and is already yielding significant financial gains. Today, there are more than 260 commercial 5G networks worldwide, serving over 1.2 billion users, and there are already 115 million gigabit F5G users. With service models and content continuously evolving, breakthroughs in technologies like glasses-free 3D are creating unprecedented immersive experiences for users. However, these new services continue to require stronger 5G network capabilities. The industry has widely agreed that 5.5G will be a key milestone in 5G evolution, and that it is fast approaching.

Today, it was announced that Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will become the first university in the world to house an IBM Quantum System One. The IBM quantum computer, intended to be operational by January of 2024, will serve as the foundation of a new IBM Quantum Computational Center in partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). By partnering, RPI's vision is to greatly enhance the educational experiences and research capabilities of students and researchers at RPI and other institutions, propel the Capital Region into a top location for talent, and accelerate New York's growth as a technology epicenter.

RPI's advance into research of applications for quantum computing will represent a more than $150 million investment once fully realized, aided by philanthropic support from Curtis R. Priem '82, vice chair of RPI's Board of Trustees. The new quantum computer will be part of RPI's new Curtis Priem Quantum Constellation, a faculty endowed center for collaborative research, which will prioritize the hiring of additional faculty leaders who will leverage the quantum computing system.

According to Taiwanese media, TSMC will start production of its first 1.4 nm fab in 2026, with chip production in the fab said to start sometime in 2027 or 2028. The new fab will be located in Longtan Science Park outside of Hsinchu in Taiwan, where many of TSMC's current fabs are located. TSMC is currently constructing a 2 nm and below node R&D facility at a nearby plot of land to where the new fab is expected to be built. This facility is expected to be finished in 2025 and TSMC has been allocated a total area of just over 158 hectares of land for future expansion in the area.

In related news, TSMC is expected to be charging US$25,000 per 2 nm GAA wafer, which is an increase of about a fifth compared to its 3 nm wafers which are going for around US$20,000. This is largely due to the nodes being fully booked and TSMC being able to charge a premium for its cutting edge nodes. TSMC is also expanding in CoWoS packaging facilities due to increased demand from both AMD and NVIDIA for AI related products. Currently TSMC is said to be able to output 12,000 CoWoS wafers per month and this is twice as much as last year, yet TSMC is unable to meet demand from its customers.

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce shared the Biden-Harris Administration's strategic vision to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain through CHIPS for America investments. To advance this vision, the Department announced a funding opportunity and application process for large semiconductor supply chain projects and will release later in the fall a separate process for smaller projects. Large semiconductor supply chain projects include materials and manufacturing equipment facility projects with capital investments equal to or exceeding $300 million, and smaller projects are below that threshold.

The announcement leads into the Biden-Harris Administration's Investing in America tour, where Secretary Raimondo and leaders in the Administration will fan across more than 20 states to highlight investments, jobs, and economic opportunity driven by President Biden's Investing in America agenda and the historic legislation he's passed in his first two years in office, including the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act.

The newly established Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in the UK has recently released the UK's National Semiconductor Strategy. Dr. Shih-Chieh Chang, General Director of Electronic and Optoelectronic System Research Laboratories at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan had an initial exchange with DSIT. During the exchange, Dr. Chang suggested that Taiwan can become a trustable partner for the UK and that the partnership can leverage collective strengths to create mutually beneficial developments. According to the Strategy, the British government plans to invest 1 billion pounds over the next decade to support the semiconductor industry. This funding will improve access to infrastructure, power more research and development and facilitate greater international cooperation.

Dr. Chang stressed that ITRI looks forward to more collaboration with the UK on semiconductors to enhance the resilience of the supply chain. While the UK possesses cutting-edge capabilities in semiconductor IP design and compound semiconductor technology, ITRI has extensive expertise in semiconductor technology R&D and trial production. As a result, ITRI is well-positioned to offer consultation services for advanced packaging pilot lines, facilitate pre-production evaluation, and link British semiconductor IP design companies with Taiwan's semiconductor industry chain. "The expansion of British manufacturers' service capacity in Taiwan would create a mutually beneficial outcome for both Taiwan and the UK," said Dr. Chang.

Lenovo Group today announced full-year results, reporting Group revenue of US$62 billion and net income of US$1.6 billion, or US$1.9 billion on a non-Hong Kong Financial Reporting Standards (HKFRS) [1] basis. Profitability was stable with gross margin and operating margin both delivering 18-year highs and non-HKFRS net margin flat year-to-year. While Group revenue was impacted due to the softness in the device market, revenue from non-PC businesses reached a fiscal year high of nearly 40%, fueled by Lenovo's diversified growth engines of Solutions and Services Group (SSG) and Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) growing revenue to record highs of US$6.7 billion and US$9.8 billion respectively, up 22% and 37% year-on-year.

After a year of industry and global uncertainties, Lenovo sees positive signs of the market stabilizing. The Group expects the entire PC and smart devices market to resume year-to-year growth in the second half of 2023, and for the IT services market to resume relatively high growth - together these will drive the total IT market in 2023 back to moderate growth. In the mid-to-long term, digital and intelligent transformation will continue to accelerate, leading to a big growth potential for cloud and computing infrastructure.

Scientific researchers need massive computational resources that can support exploration wherever it happens. Whether they're conducting groundbreaking pharmaceutical research, exploring alternative energy sources or discovering new ways to prevent financial fraud, accessible state-of-the-art AI computing resources are key to driving innovation. This new model of computing can solve the challenges of generative AI and power the next wave of innovation. Cambridge-1, a supercomputer NVIDIA launched in the U.K. during the pandemic, has powered discoveries from some of the country's top healthcare researchers. The system is now becoming part of NVIDIA DGX Cloud to accelerate the pace of scientific innovation and discovery - across almost every industry.

As a cloud-based resource, it will broaden access to AI supercomputing for researchers in climate science, autonomous machines, worker safety and other areas, delivered with the simplicity and speed of the cloud, ideally located for the U.K. and European access. DGX Cloud is a multinode AI training service that makes it possible for any enterprise to access leading-edge supercomputing resources from a browser. The original Cambridge-1 infrastructure included 80 NVIDIA DGX systems; now it will join with DGX Cloud, to allow customers access to world-class infrastructure.

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced a landmark investment to build the world's largest and most advanced facility for collaborative semiconductor process technology and manufacturing equipment research and development (R&D). The new Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center is planned as the heart of a high-velocity innovation platform designed to accelerate development and commercialization of the foundational technologies needed by the global semiconductor and computing industries.

To be located at an Applied campus in Silicon Valley, the multibillion-dollar facility is designed to provide a breadth and scale of capabilities that is unique in the industry, including more than 180,000 square feet - more than three American football fields - of state-of-the-art cleanroom for collaborative innovation with chipmakers, universities and ecosystem partners. Designed from the ground up to accelerate the pace of introducing new manufacturing innovations, the new EPIC Center is expected to reduce the time it takes the industry to bring a technology from concept to commercialization by several years, while simultaneously increasing the commercial success rate of new innovations and the return on R&D investments for the entire semiconductor ecosystem.

Sharp Corporation's Chief Executive Officer, Robert Wu, has revealed that the Japanese company's display division is involved in the research and development of an LCD screen intended for use in an "upcoming" gaming console. This small detail was announced during an earnings briefing/call with analysts (on May 11), and Wu was careful to not name the key client: "I can't comment on any details regarding specific customers. But as to a new gaming console, we've been involved in its R&D stage." Bloomberg reports that information about a gaming device was removed from presentation material, soon after the conclusion of the conference call. Sharp expects to launch pilot LCD-panel production lines by the end of this fiscal year.

Given the secrecy surrounding this business partnership and projected time frame for the new line of gaming oriented LCD screens, games industry analysts point to Nintendo being the "unnamed" client. Sharp is the current supplier of 6.2-inch LCD panels that are featured on the standard Nintendo Switch (2017) handheld console. Samsung provides a 7-inch screen that is fitted to the premium Switch OLED (2021), and InnoLux makes a 5.5-inch LCD display - sported by the entry-level Switch Lite (2019). A next-gen Switch console successor is rumored to be deep into development but is not expected to arrive this year - Nintendo's CEO, Shuntaro Furukawa, informed investors (last week) that new hardware is due at some point after April 2024.