Chipmaking manufacturing equipment giant ASML has expressed concerns about staying in the Netherlands and considering expansion into other countries due to its home country's capped possibilities. On Wednesday, ASML executives met with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte to discuss the company's growth plans. The meeting, however, failed to fully resolve ASML's concerns surrounding the country's stance on skilled foreign labor, leaving uncertainty over the tech giant's expansion in its home market. Being one of the world's largest suppliers to chipmakers, ASML has said it needs to double its operations in the following decade to meet soaring demand. However, the company is hitting roadblocks in the Netherlands, including difficulty obtaining building permits, constraints on the electrical grid, transportation bottlenecks, and a need for supporting infrastructure like hospitals, schools, and housing. A key issue is the Netherlands' ability to attract scarce foreign engineering talent, with over 40% of ASML's Dutch workforce being non-Dutch. Recent parliamentary motions to cap international students and scrap a tax break for skilled migrants have met with criticism from ASML and other tech employers.

In an effort dubbed "Operation Beethoven," the Dutch government is scrambling to address ASML's concerns and prevent the company from expanding abroad, having already seen multinationals like Shell and Unilever leave their home country in recent years. However, ASML CEO Peter Wennink said that while the company prefers to grow in the Netherlands, it can do so elsewhere if needed. The situation comes amid pressure from the US for allies like the Netherlands to tighten restrictions on China's further access to semiconductor technology. As the sole producer of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines crucial for advanced chipmaking, like High-NA and Low-NA, ASML holds strategic importance beyond just economics. With a new right-wing Dutch government being formed, whether a compromise can be reached to ensure ASML's continued growth in the Netherlands remains to be seen. The tech giant's decision could significantly affect the Dutch economy and its position in the global chip industry.

d-Matrix, the leader in high-efficiency generative AI compute for data centers, has closed $110 million in a Series-B funding round led by Singapore-based global investment firm Temasek. The goal of the fundraise is to enable d-Matrix to begin commercializing Corsair, the world's first Digital-In Memory Compute (DIMC), chiplet-based inference compute platform, after the successful launches of its prior Nighthawk, Jayhawk-I and Jayhawk II chiplets.

d-Matrix's recent silicon announcement, Jayhawk II, is the latest example of how the company is working to fundamentally change the physics of memory-bound compute workloads common in generative AI and large language model (LLM) applications. With the explosion of this revolutionary technology over the past nine months, there has never been a greater need to overcome the memory bottleneck and current technology approaches that limit performance and drive up AI compute costs.

Russian business news outlet Kommersant has learned from industry figures that prices of natively-designed computer processors have been on the rise since the beginning of 2023. Domestic manufacturers of PC, server and storage systems are requiring greater supplies of CPUs designed by Baikal Electronics and MCST - the publication posits that growing demand and logistical issues have become the root cause of recent climbs in cost - individuals involved in the computer hardware supply chain have suggested that some processor models have doubled in price. Sergey Ovchinnikov, the chief executive of Norsi-Trans (a server and data storage firm) provided comment: "Production of Russian chips at foreign fabs has become more complex, leading to extended logistics chains and, consequently, an increase in the cost of the final component." International trade sanctions have not prevented the arrival of fresh silicon into the region - Ovchinnikov claims that an unnamed foundry is able to supply (likely via proxy) Russian developers with computer processors.

Kommersant's investigation found out that Baikal's BE-T1000 CPU is now sold for roughly $110 (8900 Rubles) at a popular computer hardware e-tailer (ChipDip) in the region. The very basic dual core MIPS32r5 (28 nm) processor was readily available for $50 (3990 rubles) back in 2018, so its price has risen by 220% in recent times. TSMC was contracted as the manufacturer of Baikal's BE-T1000 CPU, and the Taiwanese foundry started producing these SoCs in 2016. A Baikal Electronics representative has denied any involvement in driving up MSRP, and states that it is up to distributors and retail outfits to determine prices. The company suspects that very old stock is being sold at inflated rates - Kommersant was unable to contact anyone at ChipDip for a statement.

The US Government is considering new plans that will attempt to curb the after effects of cryptocurrency mining. The White House revealed details about its proposed "DAME Tax" scheme on Tuesday of this week - the Digital Asset Mining Energy excise tax is under consideration for this year's US Budget. The government wants to address the impact that cryptomining has on the US economy as well as the environment, alongside numerous other national challenges. Companies engaged in the extraction of cryptocurrencies could be charged extra for the running of computer equipment (starting in early 2024). A White House spokesperson states: "after a phase-in period, firms would face a tax equal to 30 percent of the cost of the electricity they use in cryptomining."

American crypto companies are facing a 10 percent taxation of their energy bill for 2024, that will then increase to 20 percent in 2025, and the maximum tax rate will hit a high of 30 percent in 2026. The White House number crunching team reckons that $3.5 billion could be generated by the proposed DAME excise tax. The new rules would represent a radical change for large scale cryptomining efforts: "Currently, cryptomining firms do not have to pay for the full cost they impose on others, in the form of local environmental pollution, higher energy prices, and the impacts of increased greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. The DAME tax encourages firms to start taking better account of the harms they impose on society," reads a White House statement." The government's investigation has determined that the domestic cryptomining industry is close to consuming more electricity than the entire nation's residential lighting system. US lawmakers last year calculated that some of the larger digital asset mining firms are capable of using more energy than nearly all of the residential population based in Houston, TX.