TSMC reportedly set to build 12 Arizona fabs as Japan, Germany expansions stall Recent market reports highlight ongoing challenges for TSMC's wafer fabs in Arizona, including high costs and low profits. Industry sources cite supply chain issues, talent shortages, equipment maintenance, corporate culture, and labor laws as factors lagging behind Taiwan operations, with a sharp profit collapse expec...
TSMC reportedly set to build 12 Arizona fabs as Japan, Germany expansions stall Recent market reports highlight ongoing challenges for TSMC's wafer fabs in Arizona, including high costs and low profits. Industry sources cite supply chain issues, talent shortages, equipment maintenance, corporate culture, and labor laws as factors lagging behind Taiwan operations, with a sharp profit collapse expected by the third quarter of 2025. However, insiders reveal that despite short-term profit pressures, TSMC has confirmed plans to expand its Arizona campus beyond the existing six fabs by adding two new fabs. Advanced packaging capacity will also increase from two fabs to three or four. This means TSMC is set to build up to 12 fabs in Arizona, keeping capital expenditures elevated through 2026-2028. TSMC declined to comment on market rumors ahead of upcoming earnings disclosures. Third quarter gas outage slashes US fab profitability Market chatter has intensified over persistently high costs at TSMC's US fabs. In the third quarter of 2025, an unexpected power outage at a gas supplier caused several hours of downtime, scrapping thousands of wafers and slashing quarterly profits by 99%. This incident underscored operational management gaps compared to Taiwan facilities. Still, supply chain sources confirm TSMC's firm commitment to overseas expansion plans alongside domestic growth. Japan and Germany plans hit headwinds TSMC's second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, faces delays due to weaker-than-expected order volumes and no immediate plans to leapfrog from 6nm directly to 2nm processes. The lack of large chip customers and Japan's costly ecosystem—including Rapidus support, labor shortages, and expensive production equipment—are key hurdles. Nearby, Sony's new factory construction has also reportedly slowed, partly because Taiwan and the US 2nm capacities are ramping up steadily. Similar deceleration affects TSMC's German plant, where engineering continues, but progress has moderated...
Intel launched Panther Lake, its new AI chip for laptops, on Monday at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, as the company seeks to reassure investors about the first product made using its next-generation manufacturing process called 18A. Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC group, offered technical details about the company’s first line of Panther Lake chips known a...
Intel launched Panther Lake, its new AI chip for laptops, on Monday at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, as the company seeks to reassure investors about the first product made using its next-generation manufacturing process called 18A. Jim Johnson, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC group, offered technical details about the company’s first line of Panther Lake chips known as Intel Core Ultra Series 3. The chips feature a new transistor design and a way to deliver power to the chip due to the company’s 18A manufacturing process. At the event, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company made good on its promise to ship its first products with the 18A manufacturing process in 2025, referring to the Panther Lake chips. Intel’s prior-generation Lunar Lake chips were largely made by TSMC. The stakes for Intel are high; the company is making its first high-volume product with 18A, and hopes to reclaim market share it has lost to Advanced Micro Devices . Johnson said the company has created a separate graphics chiplet: a mini chip stitched together with other mini-chips to form a complete processor. On Monday, Intel said the Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips would deliver 60% better performance than the prior-generation Lunar Lake Series 2. Intel plans to launch a platform for handheld video games based on the Panther Lake designs this year, Johnson said. Handheld PCs designed by a range of suppliers have grown in popularity in recent years. Intel has struggled with the yield, or the number of good chips per silicon wafer, for the Panther Lake processors, Reuters reported last year. Intel executives have said its yields are improving monthly and will pave the way for the launch this year. For its part, AMD plans to give a CES keynote address at 9:30 p.m. EST on Monday (0230 GMT on Tuesday). CEO Lisa Su will likely launch new generations of PC chips that are geared for AI and graphics. AMD announced a multibillion-dollar deal with OpenAI for its next...
LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence took center stage at CES 2026 as AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su delivered the event's first official keynote, outlining the company's vision for an AI-powered future that reaches far beyond data centers and research labs. "AI is the most important technology of the last 50 years, and I can say it's absolutely our number one priority at AMD," Su said Monday evening on...
LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence took center stage at CES 2026 as AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su delivered the event's first official keynote, outlining the company's vision for an AI-powered future that reaches far beyond data centers and research labs. "AI is the most important technology of the last 50 years, and I can say it's absolutely our number one priority at AMD," Su said Monday evening on the CES stage. "It's already touching every major industry, whether you're going to talk about health care or science or manufacturing or commerce, and we're just scratching the surface, AI is going to be everywhere over the next few years. And most importantly, AI is for everyone." Su underscored the rapid pace of adoption with a striking comparison. Since the launch of ChatGPT, AI usage has surged from roughly one million users to more than one billion active users worldwide. According to AMD's projections, that number could exceed five billion active users in the coming years — a growth curve far steeper than the early days of the internet. A Growing AI Gap: Demand vs. Compute Power While AI adoption is accelerating, Su acknowledged a critical challenge: the world does not yet have enough computing power to support everything AI promises to deliver. "We don't have nearly enough compute for all the things we want to do with AI," she said, setting the stage for AMD's broader strategy. Rather than focusing on raw performance alone, Su emphasized the importance of tightly integrated systems — CPUs, GPUs, networking, and software — working together to scale AI infrastructure efficiently. That philosophy is embodied in AMD's Helios rack platform. Helios: The Weight of Modern AI Infrastructure First revealed in 2025 and showcased again at CES, Helios is AMD's open, modular rack design built on the OCP open rack-wide standard and developed in collaboration with Meta. "Helios is a monster of a rack," Su said. "This is no regular rack. It's a double-wide design, and it weighs nea...
Nvidia unveils 'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars The vehicle will be released in the US in the coming months before being rolled out in Europe and Asia. Huang also said Nvidia has begun producing a driverless car powered by its technology, the Mercedes-Benz CLA, in partnership with the German automaker. "Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through...
Nvidia unveils 'reasoning' AI technology for self-driving cars The vehicle will be released in the US in the coming months before being rolled out in Europe and Asia. Huang also said Nvidia has begun producing a driverless car powered by its technology, the Mercedes-Benz CLA, in partnership with the German automaker. "Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex environments, and explain their driving decisions," Huang said on stage at the annual CES technology conference in Las Vegas. Nvidia boss Jensen Huang on Monday announced Alpamayo, a tech platform the company says will help self-driving cars think like humans. Wearing his trademark black leather jacket, Huang told an audience of hundreds that the project has taught Nvidia "an enormous amount" about how to help partners build robotic systems. Analysts say the announcement reinforces Nvidia's leadership in integrating AI hardware and software, deepening its push into physical AI. "NVIDIA's pivot toward AI at scale and AI systems as differentiators will help keep it way ahead of rivals," said Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight, from Las Vegas. "Alpamayo represents a profound shift for NVIDIA, moving from being primarily a compute to a platform provider for physical AI ecosystems." Shares of the AI chip designer rose slightly in after-hours trading following Huang's presentation. It featured a video demonstration of the AI-powered Mercedes-Benz driving through San Francisco while a passenger, sat behind the steering wheel, kept their hands in their lap. "It drives so naturally because it learned directly from human demonstrators," Huang said, "but in every single scenario... it tells you what it's going to do, and it reasons about what it's about to do." Alpamayo is an open-source AI model, with the underlying code now available on machine learning platform Hugging Face, where autonomous vehicle researchers can access it for free a...
At CES 2026 AMD formally announced the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU for PC gamers, delivering even more performance than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. TL;DR: AMD announced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D at CES 2026, featuring an increased 5.6 GHz boost clock and 3D V-Cache technology for superior gaming performance. It delivers up to 27% faster 1080p gaming than Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K and will launch in Q1 2026. When i...
At CES 2026 AMD formally announced the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU for PC gamers, delivering even more performance than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. TL;DR: AMD announced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D at CES 2026, featuring an increased 5.6 GHz boost clock and 3D V-Cache technology for superior gaming performance. It delivers up to 27% faster 1080p gaming than Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K and will launch in Q1 2026. When it comes to picking up a CPU purely for PC gaming, AMD's Zen 5-powered Ryzen 7 9800X3D with its 3D V-Cache technology is widely considered the best choice if all you're looking for is maximizing your frames. Well, at CES 2026, AMD has officially confirmed that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is coming, and it will indeed be faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. 3 VIEW GALLERY - 3 IMAGES The configuration for the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D remains virtually the same, aside from the CPU Boost Clock increasing to 5.6 GHz from 5.2 GHz on the baseline Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The rest of the specs remain unchanged, as the CPU still sports 8 Zen Cores with 16 Threads, 104MB of cache, and a 120W TDP rating. As part of its CES 2026 presentation, AMD confirmed that the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D is on track for a Q1 2026 release; however, no pricing was given. That said, we should expect it to launch with a higher price than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's $479 USD MSRP. 3 As part of the announcement, AMD offered benchmarks comparing performance to the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, confirming that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is around 27% faster for 1080p gaming. From 5% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 up to 60% in Baldur's Gate 3. An impressive result; however, for those who already have a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the performance difference between the two CPUs will be only a few percent. With the Zen 5 Ryzen desktop CPU lineup expanding, here's a look at the specs.
AMD launches Ryzen AI Embedded P100 and X100 processors, integrating CPU, GPU, and NPU for efficient AI applications. Quiver AI Summary AMD has launched the Ryzen AI Embedded P100 and X100 Series processors, which integrate high-performance "Zen 5" CPU cores, an RDNA 3.5 GPU, and an XDNA 2 NPU to deliver energy-efficient AI acceleration for various applications, including automotive and industrial...
AMD launches Ryzen AI Embedded P100 and X100 processors, integrating CPU, GPU, and NPU for efficient AI applications. Quiver AI Summary AMD has launched the Ryzen AI Embedded P100 and X100 Series processors, which integrate high-performance "Zen 5" CPU cores, an RDNA 3.5 GPU, and an XDNA 2 NPU to deliver energy-efficient AI acceleration for various applications, including automotive and industrial systems. These processors are designed for low-power, low-latency AI tasks in compact environments and aim to provide OEMs and developers with powerful, scalable performance. The P100 Series, featuring 4-6 CPU cores, is optimized for in-vehicle experiences and industrial automation, boasting significant performance gains over previous generations. The processors support a range of operating systems and include an open-source software stack to facilitate development. Production shipments are anticipated in the second quarter of 2026, with plans for broader sampling of the X100 Series later in the year. Potential Positives Introduction of new Ryzen AI Embedded P100 and X100 Series processors, showcasing AMD's innovation in AI-driven applications at the edge, providing significant performance upgrades. Optimized for automotive and industrial automation, these processors deliver energy-efficient, low-latency AI acceleration in a compact package, catering to demanding edge environments. The P100 Series processors demonstrate a substantial performance boost, with up to 2.2X multi-thread and single-thread performance over previous generations, enhancing system capabilities. Integration of a unified software stack simplifies development for OEMs and developers, facilitating faster path-to-production and reducing costs for automotive and industrial systems. Potential Negatives Potential delays in production shipments for the Ryzen AI Embedded processors, which are expected in the second quarter, could impact market positioning and sales momentum. Competition with other established ...
News Summary AMD introduces new Ryzen AI 400 and PRO 400 Series processors, delivering up to 60 NPU TOPS for Copilot+ PCs and AI experiences across consumer and commercial systems. AMD introduces new Ryzen AI Max+ SKUs, bringing high-performance AI and graphics to ultra-thin notebooks, workstations, and small form factors for creation, gaming, and AI development. AMD unveils AMD Ryzen AI Halo, a p...
News Summary AMD introduces new Ryzen AI 400 and PRO 400 Series processors, delivering up to 60 NPU TOPS for Copilot+ PCs and AI experiences across consumer and commercial systems. AMD introduces new Ryzen AI Max+ SKUs, bringing high-performance AI and graphics to ultra-thin notebooks, workstations, and small form factors for creation, gaming, and AI development. AMD unveils AMD Ryzen AI Halo, a powerful, easy-to-use mini-PC that brings Ryzen AI Max+ performance to AI developers with an out-of-the-box experience designed to accelerate AI innovation at the edge. AMD announced the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, the fastest gaming processor, powered by “Zen 5” architecture and AMD 3D V-Cache technology. AMD sees strong year-over-year growth in OEM adoption of Ryzen AI processors, with more systems launching across consumer, commercial, and gaming segments throughout 2026. AMD announces AMD ROCm 7.2 software for Windows and Linux, delivering seamless support for Ryzen AI 400 Series processors and integration into ComfyUI. LAS VEGAS, Jan. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today at CES 2026, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) unveiled its latest generation of mobile and desktop processors that expand its client computing portfolio, bringing expanded AI capabilities, premium gaming performance, and commercial-ready features to more systems than ever before. AMD introduced the new AMD Ryzen™ AI 400 Series for Copilot+ PCs, Ryzen™ AI Max+ processors for premium ultra-thin and light notebooks and small form-factor desktops. The company also announced the Ryzen™ AI PRO 400 Series, enabling AI acceleration, modern security, and enterprise-class manageability designed to meet the needs of today’s business laptops. As AI becomes central to the PC experience, AMD is expanding its hardware portfolio with the launch of AMD Ryzen™ AI Halo—the company’s first AMD-branded AI developer platform. Hardware is only the beginning: AMD also announced new ROCm™ 7.2 software support for all Ryzen™ AI 400 Series processors, a...
Serious PC gamers agree: AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been one of AMD’s most successful processors in recent years, thanks to its game-boosting 3D V-Cache technology that layers in high-speed cache to enable the fastest frame rates possible with your given GPU. Now, AMD is aiming to build on that momentum with the new AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a higher-clocked variant of the 9800X3D that aims to deliver e...
Serious PC gamers agree: AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been one of AMD’s most successful processors in recent years, thanks to its game-boosting 3D V-Cache technology that layers in high-speed cache to enable the fastest frame rates possible with your given GPU. Now, AMD is aiming to build on that momentum with the new AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a higher-clocked variant of the 9800X3D that aims to deliver even better gaming performance, thanks to ticked-up clock speeds. AMD is declaring the Ryzen 7 9850X3D as the world's new fastest gaming processor, as all signs point to it surpassing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. A big question remains, though, whether it will be a better gaming CPU than AMD's more robust Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The 9850X3D Difference AMD hasn’t detailed all of the specs of the new AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, but so far, the only confirmed difference between it and the 9800X3D is a boost in the core clock speed. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D tops out at 5.2GHz, while AMD pushes that to 5.6GHz with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the 9850X3D both use the same chips at heart, so it's possible you could overclock a particularly good sample of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to match what you'll get from a stock 9850X3D. But that's just a theory. Since they both stem from the same silicon, during manufacture, to determine which chips will become Ryzen 7 9850X3D processors and which will be 9800X3D processors, AMD employs a "binning" process that tests each chip's capabilities and sorts them accordingly. The processors that go on to be 9850X3D chips prove to run stably at higher clock speeds than those chips destined to be 9800X3D chips. This is why the 9850X3D has a higher clock speed out of the box, but also why you might be able to push some samples of the 9800X3D to nearly those speeds. Otherwise, both processors share similar specs, and both work on the AMD AM5 socket. Each is loaded with eight AMD "Zen 5"-based CPU cores, which can work on two processing threads each, for a total of ...
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD Ryzen AI Embedded Processor AMD Ryzen AI Embedded Processor News Highlights New AMD Ryzen™ AI Embedded P100 and X100 Series processors combine high-performance “Zen 5” CPU cores, an AMD RDNA™ 3.5 GPU and an AMD XDNA™ 2 NPU for low-power AI acceleration Delivers energy-efficient, low-latency AI on a single chip for immersive in-vehicle experiences, industrial automa...
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD Ryzen AI Embedded Processor AMD Ryzen AI Embedded Processor News Highlights New AMD Ryzen™ AI Embedded P100 and X100 Series processors combine high-performance “Zen 5” CPU cores, an AMD RDNA™ 3.5 GPU and an AMD XDNA™ 2 NPU for low-power AI acceleration Delivers energy-efficient, low-latency AI on a single chip for immersive in-vehicle experiences, industrial automation and physical AI for autonomous systems Launching today, the Ryzen AI Embedded P100 Series processors featuring 4-6 CPU cores, estimated 35% faster GPU performance1, and up to 50 AI TOPS2 SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) introduced the AMD Ryzen™ AI Embedded processors, a new portfolio of embedded x86 processors designed to power AI-driven applications at the edge. From automotive digital cockpits and smart healthcare to physical AI for autonomous systems, including humanoid robotics, the new P100 and X100 Series processors provide OEMs, tier-1 suppliers and system and software developers in automotive and industrial markets with high performance, efficient AI compute in a compact BGA (ball grid array) package for the most constrained embedded systems. The processors integrate the high-performance “Zen 5” core architecture for scalable x86 performance and deterministic control, an RDNA 3.5 GPU for real-time visualization and graphics, and an XDNA 2 NPU for low-latency, low-power AI acceleration – all in a single chip. “As industries push for more immersive AI experiences and faster on-device intelligence, they need high performance without added system complexity,” said Salil Raje, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded. “The Ryzen AI Embedded portfolio brings leadership CPU, GPU and NPU capabilities together in a single device, enabling smarter, more responsive automotive, industrial, and autonomous systems.” The portfolio includes the P100 Series processors, targeting in-vehicle experiences and industrial...
Credit: AMD/YouTube When you come across an AI video on Instagram, or watch ChatGPT respond to your query, do you ever think about how that content was generated? Beyond the actual programs and prompts, generative AI takes an enormous amount of compute to support, especially as it skyrockets in popularity. As such, AI companies are looking for more power than ever, which means, of course, turning ...
Credit: AMD/YouTube When you come across an AI video on Instagram, or watch ChatGPT respond to your query, do you ever think about how that content was generated? Beyond the actual programs and prompts, generative AI takes an enormous amount of compute to support, especially as it skyrockets in popularity. As such, AI companies are looking for more power than ever, which means, of course, turning to those that make the hardware. AMD calls Helios "The world's best AI rack" During a Monday evening keynote, AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su showed off the hardware that will soon power everything from ChatGPT to the AI videos overwhelming your feeds. Su introduced "Helios" against a backdrop of dramatic music, the company's upcoming AI rack, that packs a staggering amount of computing power into a rack that weighs nearly 7,000 pounds. Each "cross-section" of these racks, if you will, is powered by four key AMD pieces of hardware: The company's new AMD Instinct MI455X GPU, the new AMD EPYC "Veince" CPU, the AMD Pensando "Vulcano" 800 AI NIC, and the AMD Pensando "Salina" 400 DPU. There are some staggering stats here: Helios is capable of 2.9 exaflops of AI compute, and comes with 31 TB of HBM4 memory. It offers 43 TB per second scale out Bandwidth, and is developed with 2nm and 3nm architecture. The rack has 4,600 "Zen 6" CPU cores, and 18,000 GPU compute units. In other words, this isn't your average piece of hardware. Su's pitch is that the AI industry is in need of this additional compute power. She notes how the world used one ZettaFlop of computing power in 2022 on AI technology, compared to 100 ZettaFlops in 2025. (For the curious, one ZettaFlop has a value of 10 to the power of 21.) It's no surprise: AI is everywhere, and many of us are using it—whether we know it or not. Some of us are using it overtly, generating AI videos or running chatbots daily. But others are using AI quietly embedded in functions, like live translation. The Download Newsletter Never miss a tech story ...
Japan’s 10-year government bond auction drew demand that was in line with its 12-month average as high yields lured investors. The bid-to-cover ratio was 3.30 compared with 3.59 at the previous sale and a 12-month average of 3.24. Japan’s bond futures pared gains after the sale. Japanese government bond yields have recently risen to around multi-decade highs as investors mull the Bank of Japan’s r...
Japan’s 10-year government bond auction drew demand that was in line with its 12-month average as high yields lured investors. The bid-to-cover ratio was 3.30 compared with 3.59 at the previous sale and a 12-month average of 3.24. Japan’s bond futures pared gains after the sale. Japanese government bond yields have recently risen to around multi-decade highs as investors mull the Bank of Japan’s rate-hike path as well as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s spending plans. The 10-year government bond yield hit its highest level since 1999 this week. The BOJ lifted its policy rate to a three-decade high in December, but Governor Kazuo Ueda offered little guidance on when the next move might be. The yen’s weakness has intensified concerns that the central bank may be falling behind the curve in its efforts to rein in inflation. Most BOJ watchers expect the next move to come around the middle of the year, while some say there’s a risk it could happen sooner due to the weak yen. Overnight index swaps show the next BOJ rate hike isn’t fully priced in until September. Meanwhile, Takaichi’s government plans to unveil a record initial budget for the fiscal year starting in April. Despite the increase in spending, government bond issuance will be reduced from the current fiscal year, as record tax revenues helped limit the need for additional borrowing. Investors will also be paying attention to a 30-year debt sale on Thursday after Japan announced plans to cut sales of super-long government bonds during the fiscal year starting in April.