C.C. Wei, TSMC CEO and Chairman, has shared his latest views regarding his company's North American manufacturing center—Reuters cornered him for comment during a mid-week appearance at a National Taiwan University-held event. The Taiwanese government has recently lowered its "silicon shield"—following much (reported) deliberation over "legal restrictions on transferring leading-edge process technology overseas." This relaxation of rules has TSMC considering a new set of investments for operations outside of Taiwan—with an expansion into advanced node process manufacturing. Currently, 2 nm (N2) is a home turf-speciality—industry experts estimate an expenditure of $28-30 (USD) billion to bring this production technology over to the States. TSMC's CEO has described additional challenges—on top of (and impacting) finances—local bureaucracy is a big one.

Wei stated: "every step requires a permit, and after the permit is approved, it takes at least twice as long as in Taiwan." According Reuters, he reckons that it would be difficult for their North American sites to access the latest technologies ahead of teams in Taiwan. He detailed his company's recruitment of several experts—tasked with talking to local government; about regulatory issues. This was not a cheap undertaking: "we ended up establishing 18,000 rules, which cost us $35 million." TSMC's Arizona production hub will (eventually) consist of three large factories—despite long-term teething problems, Fab 21 is reported to be churning out the first wave of "Made in America" product for a very important client: Apple. Wei expressed positives views when asked about the USA site's prospects—during an earnings conference (Jan 16)—he believes that it will eventually produce the "same quality of chips as in Taiwan," through a "smooth ramp-up process."

ONIX has quietly added Intel Arc B580 GPU-based models to its Newegg brand store—signalling the brand's arrival on North American's e-tail landscape. TechPowerUp first picked up on this new manufacturer's existence during Team Blue's introduction of Arc B-series "Battlemage" graphics cards—soon followed up with an updated version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z; adding "PCI vendor detection for ONIX." The emerging Chinese manufacturer's Odyssey OC and Lumi OC models are currently "out of stock" on the Newegg store, but compelling pricing ($10 above Intel's baseline MSRP) has attracted press coverage.

It is not clear whether initial supplies of the two ONIX cards were snapped up quickly, but Newegg states on both listings: "this product is temporarily out of stock because of high demand, we will replenish it as soon as possible." Currently, the Arc B580 Odyssey OC 12 GB (black) model is priced at $259.99, while its Lumi OC (white) sibling goes for $269.99—note: Newegg demands a $9.99 fee for shipping. VideoCardz reckons that ONIX is competing closely with Sparkle—a veteran Intel GPU board partner—and charging less than GUNNIR for equivalent specs/fittings. ONIX's official website features a product page for an Odyssey B570 10 GB model—not listed by Newegg, but we expect it to turn up soon. Intel and its AIBs declared B570's retail availability last week.

Yesterday, the Dutch government announced that it had amended its export rules regarding sanctioned semiconductor equipment—this is another adjustment that seems to align policy closer to North American terms. Equipment manufactured by ASML—the nation's crown jewel photolithography system specialist—is included on a list of sanctioned items. According to a Bloomberg New report, the export of the manufacturer's latest advanced measurement and inspection hardware will be affected by new policy. The Dutch trade ministry stated that only a "very limited" number of technologies will be safeguarded—ASML's customers will be required to apply directly for export licenses with the Dutch government (rather than the USA).

The Hague's announcement did not explicitly state that the latest adjustments were made in conjunction with US government policies, but insider sources reckon that some cross-pollination has occurred. Last December, the White House declared a new wave of restrictions—further constricting semiconductor exports to China. According to an article published by a Netherlands-based legal newspaper, the updated licensing requirements will limit the export of advanced equipment that is utilized to discover small defects in wafers, plus systems that enhance measurements after the deposition and etching phases have been completed.

The latest news reports suggest that Apple is currently verifying the quality of TSMC Arizona-made chips—the process has reached a "final test stage" with samples from an initial batch being compared to "Made in Taiwan" product. TSMC's native foundries—utilizing the latest cutting-edge technologies—are accustomed to pumping out plenty of high-quality and advanced chips. Nikkei Asia believes that an approval—if USA-made silicon passes muster—will result in commercial mass-produced chips being delivered as soon as Q1 2025. This would be a significant victory for TSMC's relatively new Arizona fab—reported teething problems have caused delays and budgets to balloon. Apple could be the first of TSMC's customers to send products to market that have Arizona-manufactured silicon onboard.

Taiwan's chip-making industry is facing an uncertain future due to regional political tensions—in reaction, the nation's government has started shifting its stance on guarding TSMC's most advanced production processes. Leading-edge process technologies could be heading overseas, with new investments being considered at the Arizona campus. TSMC and Amkor are working on setting up advanced packaging and test facilities at the Peoria location, so current logistics are not ideal—US-made product has to be sent to an Amkor packaging facility in Taiwan. TSMC USA's future looks quite promising—AMD and NVIDIA are reportedly the next in line to receive locally produced samples for verification. Industry moles reckon that Team Green's advanced "Blackwell" AI GPUs could be produced in Peoria—based on alleged partnership negotiations from late last year.

InWin has showcased several new server chassis models at CES—these new introductions form part of the company's efforts to expand regional IPC, server, and systems assembly operations going into 2025. New manufacturing facilities in the USA and Malaysia were brought online last year, and new products have sprung forth. TechPowerUp staffers were impressed by InWin's RG650B model—this cavernous rackmount GPU server has been designed with AI and HPC applications in mind. Its 6.5U dual-chamber design is divided into two sections with optimized and independent heat dissipation systems—GPU accelerators are destined for the 4.5U space, while the motherboard and CPUs go into the 2U chamber.

The RG650B's front section is dominated by the nine pre-installed hot swappable 80 x 30 mm (12,000 RPM max. rated) PWM fans. This array should provide plenty of cooling for any contained hardware; these components will be powered by an 80 Plus Titanium CRPS 3200 W PSU (with four 12V-2x6 pin connectors). InWin's spec sheet states that their RG650B supports 18 FHFL PCI-Express slots with four PCI-Express riser cables—granting plenty of potential for the installation of add-in boards.

Micro Center, a leading national computer and electronic device retailer, has relaunched the online presence of its PowerSpec brand, a trusted name in high-performance desktop PCs. The newly redesigned PowerSpec.com offers an enhanced user experience tailored to meet the needs of gamers, professionals, and tech enthusiasts alike.

Since 1992, PowerSpec has been at the forefront of delivering powerful, adaptable, and upgradeable PCs backed by Micro Center's industry-leading customer service. The revamped website reflects PowerSpec's commitment to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction by offering streamlined navigation, detailed product information, and easy access to essential drivers and support resources.

MSI, a leading global server provider, today announced the availability of high-performance server platforms supporting AMD EPYC 4004 Processors for small and medium businesses and regional-hosted IT service providers to deliver essential security capabilities and energy efficiency. "Businesses across all scales are discovering the advantages of advanced computing, connectivity, and analytics capabilities as applications and services become more widespread," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of Enterprise Platform Solutions. "MSI server platforms, supporting AMD EPYC 4004 Processors, empower our customers to implement high-performance computing with cost-effective, ease of deployment, and manageability features. This capability addresses challenges such as system costs, limited IT expertise, and other infrastructure constraints that were previously prohibitive."

"The new AMD EPYC 4004 Series CPUs, along with our strong ecosystem of technology partners, bring enterprise solutions to a traditionally underserved market and ensure that small and medium businesses have access to highly-performant technologies that help them stay competitive," said John Morris, corporate vice president, Enterprise and HPC Business Group, AMD. "The AMD EPYC 4004 CPUs fill an important market gap, providing cost-optimized solutions with enterprise-grade dependability, scalability and security in cost-optimized system configurations that make sense for smaller businesses and dedicated hosters."

The 63rd edition of the TOP500 reveals that Frontier has once again claimed the top spot, despite no longer being the only exascale machine on the list. Additionally, a new system has found its way into the Top 10.

The Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, USA remains the most powerful system on the list with an HPL score of 1.206 EFlop/s. The system has a total of 8,699,904 combined CPU and GPU cores, an HPE Cray EX architecture that combines 3rd Gen AMD EPYC CPUs optimized for HPC and AI with AMD Instinct MI250X accelerators, and it relies on Cray's Slingshot 11 network for data transfer. On top of that, this machine has an impressive power efficiency rating of 52.93 GFlops/Watt - putting Frontier at the No. 13 spot on the GREEN500.

Embracer Group has entered (as of March 28) into an agreement to divest Gearbox Entertainment, for a consideration of USD 460 million (SEK 4.9 billion) to Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. ("Take-Two"). The proceeds from the deal will, upon closing, significantly reduce net debt, earnout obligations and capex. Embracer retains selected companies, including Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (to be renamed), with the publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, the upcoming Hyper Light Breaker and other notable unannounced game releases.

"Yesterday's announcement marks the result of the final structured divestment process and is an important step in transforming Embracer into the future with notably lower net debt and improved free cash flow. Through the transaction, we lower business risk and improve profitability as we transition to becoming a leaner and more focused company. After evaluating several options for Gearbox, I am happy that we have reached a solution that is in the best interest of all stakeholders. Randy and the team have been great team members throughout the past years, and I would like to thank them all for that. As one of the world's greatest games developers, I am confident that Gearbox will continue to innovate and thrive in their new home within Take-Two," says Lars Wingefors, co-founder and CEO of Embracer.

Audio-Technica U.S. Incorporated, recently announced the formation of a new logistical operations company, Technica Logistics Inc. The announcement was made by Mr. Manabu Aoki, Audio-Technica Director and CEO/President of Audio-Technica U.S. Inc., and underscores A-T's long-term strategic business plan for ongoing growth and expansion in the coming years. "This new company is formed to supply enhanced service to our customers and consumers," stated Aoki. "This change will take advantage of Audio-Technica's past experience and success in warehouse and distribution operations, as well as its unprecedented dedication to customer support and service."

Technica Logistics Inc. will begin operation on April 1, 2024, and Mr. Michael Fuller, who has been with Audio-Technica for over 15 years, has been named as the Managing Director. The company plans to have approximately 40 employees throughout the U.S. and will have its headquarters at the Audio-Technica campus in Stow, Ohio, and the mailing address at 4701 Hudson Drive, Stow, OH.

Construction of Intel's New Albany, Ohio fabrication site started back in late 2022—since then, a series of setbacks have caused anticipated timelines to slip. Team Blue's original plans included a 2025 opening ceremony—last month, this was amended to late 2026 or early 2027. New equipment deliveries have been affected by extreme weather conditions—Intel appears to be shoring up its flood prevention systems at their Licking County location. Ohio's Department of Development received a progress report at the start of this month, authored by Team Blue staffers—revised figures indicate that Fabrication sites 1 and 2 are expected to reach operational status somewhere within "2027-2028."

Jim Evers (Intel's Ohio Site Manager) stated: "we are making great progress growing the Silicon Heartland. In addition to the approximately $1.5 billion investment in completed spends through 12/31/23 referenced in the report, Intel has an additional $3 billion in contractually committed spends underway, totaling $4.5 billion committed toward our Ohio One projects." Intel committed a hefty $20 billion greenfield investment into the two Ohio wafer fab sites, but the latest progress report indicates that just under a quarter of that budget has trickled out of company coffers (so far). Evers's statement continued: "this investment is growing every day as we work to establish a new manufacturing campus to build leading-edge semiconductor chips right here in Ohio." A Tom's Hardware report reminds us about Team Blue's New Albany project receiving "over $2 billion in incentives." Industry rumors posit that the US government is readying a multi-billion dollar grant for Intel's Arizona facility.

Tenstorrent and MosChip Technologies announced today that they are partnering on design for Tenstorrent's cutting-edge RISC-V solutions. In selecting MosChip Technologies, Tenstorrent stands to strongly advance both its own and its customers' development of RISC-V solutions as they work together on Physical Design, DFT, Verification, and RTL Design services.

"MosChip Technologies is special in that they have unparalleled tape out expertise in design services, with more than 200 multi-million gate ASICs under their belt", said David Bennett, CCO of Tenstorrent. "Partnering with MosChip enables us to design the strongest RISC-V solution we can to serve ourselves, our partners, and our customers alike."

Rumors from last week pointed to a possible $3.5 billion government defense-related investment—Intel was linked to this very lucrative semiconductor supply contract. Insiders posited that the US Department of Commerce was readying a rough $1 billion investment, while the Pentagon prepared around $2.5 billion. The latter has scrapped those plans, according to anonymous sources—Bloomberg believes that this: "move threatens to limit the total amount that Intel has been expecting to get in federal funding, setting up a contentious situation." The publication's moles have requested complete anonymity, due to the secretive nature of policy negotiations.

The US Department of Commerce deliberates over the nation's CHIPS Act—this fund could be utilized to "make up for the shortfall," following the Pentagon's reported last minute course change. The Department of Commerce could be forced to foot the entire bill—of $3.5 billion—if Intel's services are secured. Negotiations over a so-called "Secure Enclave" project have been ongoing since last year, according to insiders. It is possible that the "fast-moving" military spending bill set off alarms at the Pentagon—the Department of Defense's reasonings were not revealed by Bloomberg's investigation. Several media outlets have requested official comments from the two arms of government. Yesterday, Intel shares fell by 3%—as reported Investopedia—with the market reacting to rumors of cancelled plans.

We have provided an update on the nation-state attack that was detected by the Microsoft Security Team on January 12, 2024. As we shared, on January 19, the security team detected this attack on our corporate email systems and immediately activated our response process. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence investigation identified the threat actor as Midnight Blizzard, the Russian state-sponsored actor also known as NOBELIUM. As we said at that time, our investigation was ongoing, and we would provide additional details as appropriate.

In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access. This has included access to some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems. To date we have found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted customer-facing systems have been compromised. It is apparent that Midnight Blizzard is attempting to use secrets of different types it has found. Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft in email, and as we discover them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to assist them in taking mitigating measures. Midnight Blizzard has increased the volume of some aspects of the attack, such as password sprays, by as much as 10-fold in February, compared to the already large volume we saw in January 2024.

MSI's official North American online store has started to sell their brand-new Claw A1M handheld portable gaming PC—earlier in the week media outlets spotted a premature Newegg store listing, perhaps foreshadowing a widespread US launch on March 8 (today). MSI appears to be staggering the Claw's rollout across the global markets—late last month, German customers were treated to "early" pre-order access thanks to de-store.msi.com listing the basic model (Handheld CLAW A1M-036), with units declared as being "in stock." US customers are similarly limited to the entry level "052US" SKU—the region's MSI store official launch day price sits at $699.00. This model sports an Intel Core 5 135H "Meteor Lake" processor, and 512 GB of internal storage.

Newegg has relisted the three MSI Claw A1M variants, albeit with a revised release date of March 15—interested parties can pre-order the Core Ultra 7 + 1 TB SSD version for $799, or MSI's middle-of-the-pack Core Ultra 7 + 512 GB model for $749. Newegg's product page for the basic Core Ultra 5 + 512 GB SSD configuration bears the same $699 price tag as seen on MSI's official store listing. We are not entirely sure whether Western embargoes have been lifted to coincide with today's North American launch—a trickle out of English language evaluations could occur next week. Chinese review outlets have been experimenting with press samples since mid-February.

IBM has announced the official opening of the new IBM X-Force Cyber Range in Washington, DC. The range includes new custom training exercises specifically designed to help U.S. federal agencies, their suppliers and critical infrastructure organizations more effectively respond to persistent and disruptive cyberattacks, and threats posed by AI. The state-of-the-art facility is designed to help everyone from legal and mission-critical leaders, to the C-Suite and technical security leaders prepare for a real-world cyber incident. According to IBM's 2023 Cost of a Data Breach report the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million, with the US facing the highest breach costs across all regions. Organizations that formed an incident response (IR) team and tested their IR plan experienced faster incident response times and lower costs than organizations that did neither. In fact, the report found that high levels of IR planning and testing saved industry and government nearly $1.5 million in breach costs and 54 days from the data breach lifecycle.

"From national security threats to supply chain disruptions impacting the goods and services we rely on every day, cyberattacks on government and critical infrastructure can have ramifications that go far beyond the balance sheet," said Alice Fakir, Partner, Lead of Cybersecurity Services, US Federal Market for IBM Consulting. "The elite and highly customizable cyber response training we provide at our new DC range helps organizations and federal agencies better defend against existing and emerging threats, and also addresses federal mandates like those in the Biden Administration's Executive Order 14028 focused on improving the nation's cybersecurity."

The open-source Yuzu Switch Emulator attracted immediate Nintendo attention, around The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's launch window. Last Monday, news reports put many spotlights on freshly-filed legal documentation—the Japanese multinational video game firm's North American office took Tropic Haze LLC to court in Rhode Island. The aforementioned limited liability company created and distributed Yuzu and Citra—Switch and 3DS software emulators (respectively). Nintendo's lawsuit claimed that Tropic Haze's Yuzu software illegally circumvents their software encryption, and played a significant role in facilitating piracy "at a colossal scale." A prime example was presented in the case of Tears of the Kingdom—allegedly over one million illicit digital copies were distributed prior to its official retail release. The lawsuit proposed that "defendant (Tropic Haze) is thus secondarily liable for the infringement committed by the users to whom it distributes Yuzu."

According to a new filing, Tropic Haze has agreed to cease all operations and pay Nintendo $2.4 million in damages. This swift announcement arrived much earlier than expected—Yuzu's developer reportedly "lawyered up" late last week. According to Eurogamer: "over the weekend, Tropic Haze announced it had retained the legal services of an attorney and would be responding Nintendo's lawsuit within 60 days, but a new filing has now been spotted confirming both parties have reached a settlement—pending the court's final approval." A permanent injunction prevents Tropic Haze from: "offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise trafficking in Yuzu or any source code or features of Yuzu." This order seemingly extends to Citra (their 3DS emulator): "other software or devices that circumvent Nintendo's technical protection measures." Tropic Haze has been ordered to surrender its website domains and turn in all held physical circumvention devices. Yuzu creators are required to not establish "new entities or associations to develop similar Nintendo emulation software" in the future. Open-source "Nuzu" and "Suyu" follow-ups/spiritual successors have already popped up online.

As GDC, the world's largest game developer conference, returns to San Francisco, Microsoft and Xbox will be there to engage and empower developers, publishers, and technology partners across the industry. We are committed to supporting game developers on any platform, anywhere in the world, at every stage of development. Our message is simple: Microsoft and Xbox are here to help power your games and empower your teams. From March 18 - 22, the Xbox Lobby Lounge in the Moscone Center South can't be missed—an easy meeting point, and a first step toward learning more about the ID@Xbox publishing program, the Developer Acceleration Program (DAP) for underrepresented creators, Azure cloud gaming services, and anything else developers might need.

GDC features dozens of speakers from across Xbox, Activision, Blizzard, King and ZeniMax who will demonstrate groundbreaking in-game innovations and share community-building strategies. Microsoft technology teams, with support from partners, will also host talks that spotlight new tools, software and services that help increase developer velocity, grow player engagement and help creators grow. See below for the Conference programming details.

TSMC Arizona's second semiconductor fabrication site has celebrated a "topping out" milestone—as documented in an official blog post (via LinkedIn) from yesterday. Workers were photographed installing an important/final piece of structure—the aforementioned "topping out" milestone signifies: "the last steel beam being raised into place on a construction project." The Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturer has had a rough time in establishing operations out in the desert/greater Phoenix area—the "Fab 21 Phase 2" plant is not expected to meet its original 2026 opening window. TSMC Chairman Mark Liu is reportedly leaving his position due to consistent Arizona-related problems and delays.

The TSMC LinkedIn account shared some additional and certainly much-needed positive news: "We also recently achieved the topping milestone on our second fab's auxiliary buildings, which will supply the necessary utilities infrastructure to the second fab clean room." Thursday's blog (February 22) also discloses that the primary site—Fab 21 Phase 1—is still on track to begin production within the first half of 2025, thanks to "significant" bursts in construction progress. The author moved onto future production prospects: "Once operational, our two fabs at TSMC Arizona will manufacture the most advanced semiconductor technology in the U.S., creating 4,500 direct high-tech, high-wage jobs and enabling our customers' leadership in the high-performance computing and artificial intelligence era for decades."

US Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, was a notable guest speaker during yesterday's Intel Foundry Direct Connect Keynote—she was invited on (via a video link) to discuss the matter of strengthening the nation's semiconductor industry, and staying competitive with global rivals. During discussions, Pat Gelsinger (Intel CEO) cheekily asked whether a "CHIPS Act Part Two" was in the pipeline. Raimondo responded by stating that she is till busy with the original $52 billion tranche: "I'm out of breath running as fast as I can implementing CHIPS One." Earlier this week, her department revealed a $1.5 billion planned direct fund for GlobalFoundries: "this investment will enable GF to expand and create new manufacturing capacity and capabilities to securely produce more essential chips for automotive, IoT, aerospace, defense, and other vital markets."

Intel is set to receive a large grant courtesy of the US government's 2022-launched CHIPS and Science Act—exact figures have not been revealed to the public, but a Nikkei Asia report suggests that Team Blue will be benefiting significantly in the near future: "While the Commerce Department has not yet announced how much of the funding package's $52 billion it would grant Intel, the American chipmaker is expected to get a significant portion, according to analysts and officials close to the situation." Raimondo stated that: "Intel is an American champion company and has a very huge role to play in this revitalization." The US Commerce Chief also revealed that she had spoken with artificial intelligence industry leaders, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, about the ever-growing demand for AI-crunching processors/accelerators/GPUs. The country's semiconductor production efforts could be bolstered once more, in order to preserve a competitive edge—Raimondo addressed Gelsinger's jokey request for another batch of subsidies: "I suspect there will have to be—whether you call it Chips Two or something else—continued investment if we want to lead the world...We fell pretty far. We took our eye off the ball."

NVIDIA today announced it will host its flagship GTC 2024 conference at the San Jose Convention Center from March 18-21. More than 300,000 people are expected to register to attend in person or virtually. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang will deliver the keynote from the SAP Center on Monday, March 18, at 1 p.m. Pacific time. It will be livestreamed and available on demand. Registration is not required to view the keynote online. Since Huang first highlighted machine learning in his 2014 GTC keynote, NVIDIA has been at the forefront of the AI revolution. The company's platforms have played a crucial role in enabling AI across numerous domains including large language models, biology, cybersecurity, data center and cloud computing, conversational AI, networking, physics, robotics, and quantum, scientific and edge computing.

The event's 900 sessions and over 300 exhibitors will showcase how organizations are deploying NVIDIA platforms to achieve remarkable breakthroughs across industries, including aerospace, agriculture, automotive and transportation, cloud services, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, retail and telecommunications. "Generative AI has moved to center stage as governments, industries and organizations everywhere look to harness its transformative capabilities," Huang said. "GTC has become the world's most important AI conference because the entire ecosystem is there to share knowledge and advance the state of the art. Come join us."

NVIDIA has joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology's new U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium as part of the company's effort to advance safe, secure and trustworthy AI. AISIC will work to create tools, methodologies and standards to promote the safe and trustworthy development and deployment of AI. As a member, NVIDIA will work with NIST—an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce—and fellow consortium members to advance the consortium's mandate. NVIDIA's participation builds on a record of working with governments, researchers and industries of all sizes to help ensure AI is developed and deployed safely and responsibly.

Through a broad range of development initiatives, including NeMo Guardrails, open-source software for ensuring large language model responses are accurate, appropriate, on topic and secure, NVIDIA actively works to make AI safety a reality. In 2023, NVIDIA endorsed the Biden Administration's voluntary AI safety commitments. Last month, the company announced a $30 million contribution to the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource pilot program, which aims to broaden access to the tools needed to power responsible AI discovery and innovation.

Dylan Patel, of SemiAnalysis, has highlighted worrying industry trends from an October 2021 published report—the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) document explored and "(outlined) infrastructure investments and regulatory reforms that could make the United States a more attractive place to build new chipmaking capacity and ensure continued U.S. access to key inputs for semiconductor manufacturing." Citing CSET/World Fab Forecast findings, Patel expressed his dissatisfaction with the apparent lack of progress in the region: "The United States is the slowest relevant country in the world to build a fab thanks to NIMBY assholes and the garbage regulatory/permitting system." The SemiAnalysis staffer likely believes that unsuitable conditions remain in place, and continue to hinder any forward momentum—for greenfield fabrications projects, at least.

The CSET 2021 report posited that the proposed $52 billion CHIPS Act fund would not solve all USA chip industry problems—throwing a large sum of money into the pot is not always a surefire solution: "The United States' ability to expeditiously construct fabs has declined at the same time as the total number of fab projects in the United States has declined. Some of this is due to changes in the global semiconductor value chain, which has concentrated resources in Asia as foundries have risen in prominence, and countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and China have established significant market share in the industry from 1990 to 2020. However, during this same 30-year period, the time required to build a new fab in the United States increased 38 percent, rising from an average of 665 days (1.8 years) during the 1990 to 2000 time period to 918 days (2.5 years) during the 2010-2020 time period (Figure 2). At the same time, the total number of new fab projects in the United States was halved, decreasing from 55 greenfield fab projects in the 1990-2000 time period to 22 greenfield fab projects between 2010 and 2020." Intel's work-in-progress Ohio fabrication site has suffered numerous setbacks (including delayed CHIPS Act payments)—the latest news articles suggest that an opening ceremony could occur in late 2026 or early 2027. Reportedly, TSMC's Arizona facility is a frequently runs into bureaucratic and logistical headaches—putting pressure on company leadership at their Hsinchu (Taiwan) headquarters.

MSI is preparing to launch its MPG 321URX QD-OLED monitor this month—we first spotted this model during an official expansion of the company's QD-OLED gaming monitor lineup—utilizing Samsung Display Gen 3 panels. The announcement outlined an initial MSRP of $1199 for MSI's MPG 321URX gaming monitor, although a time-limited special introductory offer of $949 was later advertised. ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) released its Swift OLED PG32UCDM gaming monitor (in USA and UK markets) late last week—competing at a $1299 price point with MSI's 321URX model. The two companies are attempting to outdo each other—earlier this month MSI pledged a 3-year warranty on its OLED panel products, semi-forcing ASUS into matching that generous offer—they previously advertised a two-year period for ROG Swift OLED monitors.

Monitors Unboxed has investigated alleged permanent MSI MSRP price cuts—affecting the MPG 321URX, as well the 49-inch 491CQP and 27-inch 271QRX QD-OLED models. The manufacturer appears prepped to undercut its competition to the tune of $350 (MPG 321URX vs. PG32UCDM): "I've gotten a second update from MSI regarding the MSRP of their QD-OLEDs. They have decided to change their mind and offer their previously lowered pricing permanently, instead of just as an introductory price. That means the official MSRPs of their products are as follows (read more after the jump)." At the time of writing, MSI's MPG 321URX QD-OLED is available to pre-order at a few North American and UK e-tailers, although a couple of listings state the item is "coming soon," or due in stock by early April.

Edged Energy, a subsidiary of Endeavour devoted to carbon neutral data center infrastructure, announced today the launch of its first four U.S. data centers, all designed for today's high-density AI workloads and equipped with advanced waterless cooling and ultra-efficient energy systems. The facilities will bring more than 300 MW of critical capacity with an industry-leading average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.15 portfolio-wide. Edged has nearly a dozen new data centers operating or under construction across Europe and North America and a gigawatt-scale project pipeline.

The first phase of this U.S. expansion includes a 168 MW campus in Atlanta, a 96 MW campus in the Chicago area, 36 MW in Phoenix and 24 MW in Kansas City. At a time of growing water scarcity where rivers, aquifers and watersheds are at dangerously low levels, it is more critical than ever that IT infrastructure conserve precious water resources. The new Edged facilities are expected to save more than 1.2 billion gallons of water each year compared to conventional data centers. "The rise of AI and machine learning is requiring more power, and often more water, to cool outdated servers. While traditional data centers struggle to adapt, Edged facilities are ready for the advanced computing of today and tomorrow without consuming any water for cooling," said Bryant Farland, Chief Executive Officer for Edged. "Sustainability is at the core of our platform. It is why our data centers are uniquely optimized for energy efficiency and water conservation. We are excited to be partnering with local communities to bring future-proof solutions to a growing digital economy."