Germany is set to invest €2 billion in the semiconductor industry after recent setbacks, according to TrendForce via Liberty Times citing Bloomberg. The German government's new funding is in response to the chip sector's problems, including Intel's delay of the Magdeburg factory and global disruptions in the semiconductor supply chain. The investment will support 10 to 15 projects from wafer production to microchip assembly to strengthen Germany's and Europe's microelectronics ecosystem. This is in line with the European Chips Act which aims to increase the EU's global production capacity to 20% by 2030.

Intel's €30 billion Magdeburg factory delay and other cancelled chip projects from Wolfspeed and ZF Friedrichshafen AG have created uncertainty in the German market. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is now calling for new applications for funding, with up to €3 billion available. The timing of the semiconductor investment follows the global supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and the increasing geopolitical tensions between the US, China and Taiwan. Germany is following a broader trend of governments investing in local semiconductor production to increase technological independence and economic resilience. The funding is subject to budget reallocation with the new government after February 2025 elections. In the first round of subsidies from the European Chips Act, Germany allocated resources to two key initiatives: Intel's investment and a collaborative project between Infineon and TSMC in Dresden.

Terahard Studios is excited to announce its latest title, Dunebound Tactics, a turn-based tactics roguelite RPG set in a wasteland overtaken by the bonedry desert sand. The Steam page launched today and is ready to welcome some wishlists! Lead your band of survivors on a hazardous trek across unforgiving sands in search of a new home. Battle ruthless factions, scavenge dwindling resources, and make life-or-death choices to keep your sand-faring ship on the move, even if it requires sacrificing your own crewmates!

"Personally, I'm a huge tactics fanatic. We built our very own tactics engine with RPG elements from the ground up for Dunebound Tactics! I'm excited both for the technical innovations as well as the freedom we gave our game designers to create an amazing experience. The art in this game is the best we've managed so far connecting all the little details to squeeze performance and quality." - Aris Tsevrenis, CEO of Terahard Studios

Developer SpaceRocket Games and publisher Toplitz Productions announce Permafrost, an exciting new addition to the survival game genre and one with a chilling narrative; Permafrost thrusts players into a bleak, open-world urban landscape where survival is not just a choice—it's a necessity.

In the wake of the cataclysmic 'shattering', an apocalyptic moon phase phenomenon, humanity finds itself teetering on the brink of extinction as the world succumbs to an eternal deep freeze. The game reveals the collapse of existing political and economic structures and the deadly winter cold that has resulted in the deaths of billions of people.

It's official: NVIDIA delivered the world's fastest platform in industry-standard tests for inference on generative AI. In the latest MLPerf benchmarks, NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM—software that speeds and simplifies the complex job of inference on large language models—boosted the performance of NVIDIA Hopper architecture GPUs on the GPT-J LLM nearly 3x over their results just six months ago. The dramatic speedup demonstrates the power of NVIDIA's full-stack platform of chips, systems and software to handle the demanding requirements of running generative AI. Leading companies are using TensorRT-LLM to optimize their models. And NVIDIA NIM—a set of inference microservices that includes inferencing engines like TensorRT-LLM—makes it easier than ever for businesses to deploy NVIDIA's inference platform.

Raising the Bar in Generative AI
TensorRT-LLM running on NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs—the latest, memory-enhanced Hopper GPUs—delivered the fastest performance running inference in MLPerf's biggest test of generative AI to date. The new benchmark uses the largest version of Llama 2, a state-of-the-art large language model packing 70 billion parameters. The model is more than 10x larger than the GPT-J LLM first used in the September benchmarks. The memory-enhanced H200 GPUs, in their MLPerf debut, used TensorRT-LLM to produce up to 31,000 tokens/second, a record on MLPerf's Llama 2 benchmark. The H200 GPU results include up to 14% gains from a custom thermal solution. It's one example of innovations beyond standard air cooling that systems builders are applying to their NVIDIA MGX designs to take the performance of Hopper GPUs to new heights.

Lead a nation of your design through a history shaped by your choices in Millennia, a new 4x historical strategy game from C Prompt Games and Paradox Interactive. Guide your people from the stone to a near future, maybe taking detours through historical ages of plague or steampunk technology in Millennia, available now. From us at Paradox Interactive & C Prompt Games, we hope you love the game!

Define history; turn by turn and age by age. In Millennia, you start with a blank slate on which to write a new society and culture. Choose traits and government forms as you accumulate power through a variety of domains (government, war, art, etc.), using these powers to expand and exploit the world around you. Develop a production chain to transform common resources into valuable goods, and then trade the surplus to a distant settlement, boosting its population and production. Define your nation as a land of warriors, explorers or learners as you adopt new traits over time.

Explore a strange new planet, pilot and customize your very own mech suit and work with up to three friends online to clean up and create a sustainable environment in Lightyear Frontier, out in Early Access March 19 on Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam), and via Game Pass. Take a new direction in the farming-sim genre, as Lightyear Frontier sends players beyond the stars to a beautiful planet, where the goal is not to destroy or conquer but to nurture and cultivate a homestead for you and your friends. Embark in your mech and live in harmony with the world's wondrous nature, as you help restore the planet to its natural beauty.

Find The Mech, Save The World
Where many games invite players to alien worlds to battle waves of monsters or save the universe from an intergalactic threat, Lightyear Frontier brings fresh ideas to the table. Instead of embarking on a path of destruction, players will work to help cultivate this forgotten land, managing their relationship with the ecosystem as they create a sustainable, healthy environment for themselves and all the wildlife that roams the planet. Pollution has taken over the world, causing environmental hazards and challenges for players to overcome. With your trusty mech, it's up to you and up to three of your friends to clean up the hazards that have soiled this world. Use your hose tool to power wash devastating pollution or equip your trusty hose to clean up noxious weeds to unlock new areas and uncover the past of this world.

The US government is reported to be preparing a very healthy $3.5 billion investment in Intel Corporation—a mid-week published Bloomberg article proposes that the White House has authored a new "fast-moving spending bill." Congressional aides believe that Team Blue—upon official approval/signing off of funds—will be tasked with the production of advanced semiconductors for military and intelligence programs. Bloomberg posits that the resources will be sourced from a "Secure Enclave" project, seemingly linking to a wider tranche of funds within the US government's CHIPS and Science Act. The agreement/contract is expected to run over a period of three years. According to Bloomberg: "the Senate is expected to pass the legislation by a Saturday (March 9) deadline."

Reports from last November suggested that Intel leadership and US government representatives had engaged in negotiations regarding funds for military and intelligence chip applications—the construction costs for new manufacturing facilities were estimated to be in the $3 billion to $4 billion range. A Commerce Department statement was submitted to Bloomberg, but they only commented on an overall $10 billion budget: "We are still reviewing the effect of the appropriations text on the program...(we look) forward to continuing to work with Congress on implementing the Chips and Science Act in a manner the promotes our economic and national security." TSMC, Micron and Samsung are expected to receive "multi-billion-dollar awards" in the near future—these multinational corporations will assist in a bolstering of North American chip manufacturing capabilities.

Jim Ryan—President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment—revealed a sobering restructuring plan earlier today: "The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company. We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted." Ryan's full email—addressed to the entire Sony Interactive Entertainment workforce—can be found here. It reveals that company leadership has decided to close its PlayStation London Studio—the South East UK team is/was reportedly working on an announced "PS5 online game." Microsoft revealed a larger scale layoff program late last month—affecting 1900 employees—albeit without shuttering any major development studios. A number of its California-based teams are in the process of ditching "traditional" office locations (including a former aircraft hangar), and are moving to a work from home (WFH) model.

The SIE chief believes that current circumstances are not sustainable: "These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success, and we are very grateful for their contributions. However, the industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead. We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future technology in gaming, so we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community." His email outlines an "impact for employees across all SIE regions—Americas, EMEA, Japan, and APAC," with reductions affecting native development teams and Firesprite, a Liverpool, UK-based studio (founded by former Psygnosis veterans). Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, also posted a blog entry on the subject of SIE global layoffs—he confirmed a number of reductions and project cancellations.

In Sept. 2023, Quantum Machines (QM) unveiled OPX1000, our most advanced quantum control system to date - and the industry's leading controller in terms of performance and channel density. OPX1000 is the third generation of QM's processor-based quantum controllers. It enhances its predecessor, OPX+, by expanding analog performance and multiplying channel density to support the control of over 1,000 qubits. However, QM's vision for quantum controllers extends far beyond.

OPX1000 is designed as a platform for orchestrating the control of large-scale QPUs (quantum processing units). It's equipped with 8 frontend modules (FEMs) slots, representing the cutting-edge modular architecture for quantum control. The first low-frequency (LF) module was introduced in September 2023, and today, we're happy to introduce the Microwave (MW) FEM, which delivers additional value to our rapidly expanding customer base.

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.

We are delighted to announce our support for the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot, a vital initiative highlighted in the President's Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. This initiative aligns with our commitment to broaden AI research and spur innovation by providing greater computing resources to AI researchers and engineers in academia and non-profit sectors. We look forward to contributing to the pilot and sharing insights that can help inform the envisioned full-scale NAIRR.

The NAIRR's objective is to democratize access to the computational tools essential for advancing AI in critical areas such as safety, reliability, security, privacy, environmental challenges, infrastructure, health care, and education. Advocating for such a resource has been a longstanding goal of ours, one that promises to equalize the field of AI research and stimulate innovation across diverse sectors. As a commissioner on the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI), I worked with colleagues on the committee to propose an early conception of the NAIRR, underlining our nation's need for this resource as detailed in the NSCAI Final Report. Concurrently, we enthusiastically supported a university-led initiative pursuing a national computing resource. It's rewarding to see these early ideas and endeavors now materialize into a tangible entity.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, has announced another major milestone in their commitment towards a sustainable future, with the inclusion of recycled materials in new PC products launching throughout 2024 and beyond. Focusing on its core PC peripherals, this new initiative covers three key categories: mice, keyboards, and headsets. Initially, only the models produced in Razer's signature black base colorway will feature recycled materials, with more product categories to be added over time.

Razer has been experimenting with the use of recycled materials in product manufacture, with two products already available. The Razer DeathAdder V2 X HyperSpeed gaming mouse contains 40% recycled materials, and the Razer Ornata V3 ergonomic clicky gaming keyboard has at least 20%. With these successful integrations of recycled materials, both products met the strict criteria to achieve the UL 2809 ECOLOGO label, an independently verified ecolabel certification from the world's leading testing, inspection and certification company, UL Solutions. Razer is now pushing the program out to encompass an even wider range of products, for all its core PC peripheral launches from the start of 2024 and onwards.

Apple has been experimenting with Large Language Models (LLMs) that power most of today's AI applications. The company wants these LLMs to serve the users best and deliver them efficiently, which is a difficult task as they require a lot of resources, including compute and memory. Traditionally, LLMs have required AI accelerators in combination with large DRAM capacity to store model weights. However, Apple has published a paper that aims to bring LLMs to devices with limited memory capacity. By storing LLMs on NAND flash memory (regular storage), the method involves constructing an inference cost model that harmonizes with the flash memory behavior, guiding optimization in two critical areas: reducing the volume of data transferred from flash and reading data in larger, more contiguous chunks. Instead of storing the model weights on DRAM, Apple wants to utilize flash memory to store weights and only pull them on-demand to DRAM once it is needed.

Two principal techniques are introduced within this flash memory-informed framework: "windowing" and "row-column bundling." These methods collectively enable running models up to twice the size of the available DRAM, with a 4-5x and 20-25x increase in inference speed compared to native loading approaches on CPU and GPU, respectively. Integrating sparsity awareness, context-adaptive loading, and a hardware-oriented design pave the way for practical inference of LLMs on devices with limited memory, such as SoCs with 8/16/32 GB of available DRAM. Especially with DRAM prices outweighing NAND Flash, setups such as smartphone configurations could easily store and inference LLMs with multi-billion parameters, even if the DRAM available isn't sufficient. For a more technical deep dive, read the paper on arXiv here.

Underscoring NVIDIA's growing relationship with the global technology superpower, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang Monday evening. The meeting at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg—as the Prime Minister's official residence in New Delhi is known—comes as Modi prepares to host a gathering of leaders from the G20 group of the world's largest economies, including U.S. President Joe Biden, later this week.

"Had an excellent meeting with Mr. Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA," Modi said in a social media post. "We talked at length about the rich potential India offers in the world of AI." The event marks the second meeting between Modi and Huang, highlighting NVIDIA's role in the country's fast-growing technology industry.

It's high-time that we released the full demo for Tempest Rising. Get a taste for Tempest Rising in this playable demo! Experience the first mission of both the Global Defence Forces and the Tempest Dynasty in their desperate struggle for dominance and resources. The classic Real-Time Strategy experience that you love and remember.

Classic RTS action meets modern production and performance in Tempest Rising. Inspired by RTS greats of the 1990s and 2000s, Tempest Rising is a classic, base-building real time strategy game set in a modern day alternative history war scenario. It features 3 unique factions, each with its own approach to combat and economy and offering a variety of strategies for players of all stripes, maps with neutral structures to contest and neutral populations to contend with, deep and rewarding gameplay that keeps a focus on strategy while rewarding skill.

Players come to Xbox to build friendships, be competitive, and to experience incredible games - and they expect to be treated fairly, for interactions to be free of hate or harassment. Our investments in safety have helped players feel safer across text, video, and image - and our new voice reporting experience is the latest addition to our robust suite of family and online safety features.

Starting this week, we are releasing a new platform-wide voice reporting feature to Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead Xbox Insiders, that gives players the option to capture and report inappropriate in-game voice chats. More specifically, this feature equips Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One players with the ability to capture a 60-second video clip of an in-game voice incident that they believe violates our Community Standards and submit it as evidence to our Xbox Safety Team for review. This feature is purpose-built to support the broadest arena of in-game interactions between players and works across thousands of games that offer in-game multiplayer voice chat, including Xbox 360 backward-compatible titles.

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.

As we enter the second week of May, we have a rather eclectic range of games for you, with no clear headline title of this upcoming week's releases. That said, we have dungeons, hype trains, occupations and all kinds of crazy things to look forward to in the coming week.

Darkest Dungeon II / Monday 8 May
Darkest Dungeon II is a roguelike road trip of the damned. Form a party, equip your stagecoach, and set off across the decaying landscape on a last gasp quest to avert the apocalypse. The greatest dangers you face, however, may come from within...

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and other AI tools, the new models pose a threat to workers around the globe. Today, as reported by Bloomberg News, we find out that International Business Machines, or IBM shortly, is planning to replace thousands of jobs using automation and AI technology. As the report suggests, IBM's Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna is expecting to pause the hiring for roles AI could replace in the coming years. The main department that will see a job cut is the non-customer-facing roles like the back office. There are 26,000 people at IBM working in the back office, and CEO noted that "I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period."

This translates to roughly 7,800 jobs impacted by AI over the next five years. The CEO also added that departments such as human resources would see a hiring slowdown or even suspension of hiring further. IBM has 260,000 employees, and the company continues to look for engineering and customer-facing roles.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 21, 2023 -- The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of the TLA+ Foundation to promote the adoption and development of the TLA+ programming language and its community of TLA+ practitioners. Inaugural members include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle and Microsoft. TLA+ is a high-level language for modeling programs and systems, especially concurrent and distributed ones. TLA+ has been successfully used by companies to verify complex software systems, reducing errors and improving reliability. The language helps detect design flaws early in the development process, saving time and resources.

TLA+ and its tools are useful for eliminating fundamental design errors, which are hard to find and expensive to correct in code. The language is based on the idea that the best way to describe things precisely is with simple mathematics. The language was invented decades ago by the pioneering computer scientist Leslie Lamport, now a distinguished scientist with Microsoft Research. After years of Lamport's stewardship and Microsoft's support, TLA+ has found a new home at the Linux Foundation.

Terra Nil is now available now!
Terra Nil is a game about transforming barren lifeless landscapes into thriving, vibrant ecosystems. Turn dead soil into fertile grassland, clean polluted oceans, plant sprawling forests, and create the ideal habitat for animals to call home. Then recycle your buildings and leave no trace that you were ever there. Terra Nil is an intricate environmental strategy game about transforming a barren wasteland into a thriving, balanced ecosystem. Bring life back to a lifeless world by purifying soil, cleaning oceans, planting trees, and reintroducing wildlife, then leave without a trace.

A reverse city builder
Use advanced eco-technology to purify the soil, creating plains, wetlands, beaches, rainforests, wildflowers, and more—then efficiently recycle everything you've built, leaving the environment pristine for its new animal inhabitants.