Hello Everyone! First up, thank you all for all the feedback following the announcement of House Ecaz. We're very happy with how the faction is coming together and we can't wait to hear your thoughts on Arrakis' newest arrival when the game launches out of Early Access later this month, which conveniently leads us to our next announcement...

We are very proud to share that Dune: Spice Wars launches out of Early Access and into 1.0 on the 14th of September! With release now within spitting distance, we thought it would be a good time to address some of the burning questions we've been getting of late and give some details on what to expect from this major milestone in D:SW's development! So read on for the official Dune: Spice Wars 1.0 F.A.Q...

According to Business Insider, Twitter has made a substantial investment into hardware upgrades at its North American datacenter operation. The company has purchased somewhere in the region of 10,000 GPUs - destined for the social media giant's two remaining datacenter locations. Insider sources claim that Elon Musk has committed to a large language model (LLM) project, in an effort to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT system. The GPUs will not provide much computational value in the current/normal day-to-day tasks at Twitter - the source reckons that the extra processing power will be utilized for deep learning purposes.

Twitter has not revealed any concrete plans for its relatively new in-house artificial intelligence project but something was afoot when, earlier this year, Musk recruited several research personnel from Alphabet's DeepMind division. It was theorized that he was incubating a resident AI research lab at the time, following personal criticisms levelled at his former colleagues at OpenAI, ergo their very popular and much adopted chatbot.

Silicon manufacturers in South Korea and Taiwan have questioned the requirements outlined in the United States Chips and Science Act - South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol spoke on Thursday March 30, and said that there was a growing concern within companies Samsung Electronics Corporation and SK Hynix Inc. with regard to criteria for new U.S. semiconductor subsidies. Excess profit sharing is one area of contention, as the U.S. government will expect dividends to be paid under special conditions. The companies are also reluctant to meet the requirements of submitting detailed information about fab capacity and yield estimates. Leaders are pointing to the potential sensitive nature of exposing too much confidential corporate strategy to bodies in the USA, and sources within Samsung and SK Hynix are worried that budgetary planning information will be revealed in minute detail.

The CHIPS Act grants a $52 billion pool of research and manufacturing funds, and subsidies would be sourced from it. SK Hynix's parent group is considering an application in order to gain access to funding via the CHIPS Act, the SK Group has formed plans to invest $15 billion of its own money into the U.S. chip manufacturing sector - a North American location for an advanced chip packaging plant is being decided upon. Samsung has invested a substantial $25 billion into its Texas operation, so is eligible to receive U.S. government subsidies as well.

On Monday 27 March U.S. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act in order to form a budget of $50 million, to be spent on domestic and Canadian production of printed circuit boards (aka PCBs). This move was deemed as important to matters of national defense, and technology has been cited as key part of North American security efforts. In a memo issued that day, Biden stated that without presidential action under the act: "United States industry cannot reasonably be expected to provide the capability for the needed industrial resource, material, or critical technology item in a timely manner."

PCBs form the basis of vital components that are integrated into military-purpose missiles and radars, in addition to electronics utilized for energy distribution and the nation's healthcare. The President continues to outline the importance of the Defense Production Act: "I find that action to expand the domestic production capability for printed circuit boards and advanced packaging is necessary to avert an industrial resource or critical technology item shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability."