Intel Corporation ("Intel") today announced its intention to separate Intel Capital, its global venture capital arm, into a standalone fund. The new fund will bring Intel Capital's corporate structure into alignment with other leading venture firms, enabling greater autonomy and the flexibility to attract external capital. Intel will remain an anchor investor in the new company.

"The separation of Intel Capital is a win-win scenario as it provides the fund with access to new sources of capital to expand its franchise while allowing both companies to continue benefiting from a productive long-term strategic partnership," said David Zinsner, interim co-chief executive officer and chief financial officer of Intel. "This step supports our broader strategy to maximize the value of our assets while driving greater focus and efficiency across the business."

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced results for its first quarter of fiscal 2025, which ended November 28, 2024.

Fiscal Q1 2025 highlights

• Revenue of $8.71 billion versus $7.75 billion for the prior quarter and $4.73 billion for the same period last year
• GAAP net income of $1.87 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share
• Non-GAAP net income of $2.04 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share
• Operating cash flow of $3.24 billion versus $3.41 billion for the prior quarter and $1.40 billion for the same period last year

"Micron delivered a record quarter, and our data center revenue surpassed 50% of our total revenue for the first time," said Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron Technology. "While consumer-oriented markets are weaker in the near term, we anticipate a return to growth in the second half of our fiscal year. We continue to gain share in the highest margin and strategically important parts of the market and are exceptionally well positioned to leverage AI-driven growth to create substantial value for all stakeholders."

Databricks, the Data and AI company, today announced its Series J funding. The company is raising $10 billion of expected non-dilutive financing and has completed $8.6 billion to date. This funding values Databricks at $62 billion and is led by Thrive Capital. Along with Thrive, the round is co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, GIC, Insight Partners and WCM Investment Management. Other significant participants include existing investor Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and new investors ICONIQ Growth, MGX, Sands Capital and Wellington Management.

The company has seen increased momentum and accelerated growth (over 60% year-over-year) in recent quarters largely due to the unprecedented interest in artificial intelligence. To satisfy customer demand, Databricks intends to invest this capital towards new AI products, acquisitions, and significant expansion of its international go-to-market operations. In addition to fueling its growth, this capital is expected to be used towards providing liquidity for current and former employees, as well as pay related taxes. Finally, this quarter marks the first time the company is expected to achieve positive free cash flow.

The Biden-Harris Administration has given Micron Technology up to $6.165 billion in direct funds through the CHIPS Incentives Program to back the company's manufacturing growth. The money will allow Micron to execute its plan announced in October 2022 by investing about $100 billion into Clay, New York fab, and $25 billion into Idaho over 20 years aiming to boost the United States' advanced memory manufacturing from under 2% to around 10% by 2035. This large investment aims to make the U.S. economy stronger by creating a home supply of cutting-edge DRAM chips, moreover it is expected to create approximately 20,000 job across the U.S. Micron plans to spend about $50 billion before 2030 focusing on making more advanced memory semiconductor technology.

Also, the Department of Commerce has put pen to paper on a first draft of terms with Micron. This could lead to funding of up to $275 million to upgrade its Manassas, Virginia plant. The $2 billion investment project aims to bring Micron's 1-alpha technology back to U.S. The 1-alpha process was launched in 2021 and is used for the latest LPDDR5 DRAM chips. This would boost monthly wafer production and create over 400 factory jobs. At its busiest, the project could generate up to 2,700 jobs in the local area.

Japan has proposed a $65 billion (or more) plan to strengthen the semiconductor and AI industries in the country through grants and financial support by fiscal year 2030. The government plans to present this proposal at the next parliamentary session. The draft includes support for mass production of next-generation chips, focusing on AI chipmakers such as Rapidus, the government estimates an economic impact of about 160 trillion yen from this investment. Rapidus plans to start mass production of advanced chips in Hokkaido from 2027 and will work with IBM and Belgian research organization Imec.

According to the report from Reuters, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said the government would not issue deficit-financing bonds to fund the support plan, although specific financial details are not yet known. The new initiative builds on last year's 2 trillion yen investment in the chip industry, and it is part of a broader economic package. Expected to be approved by the Cabinet on November 22, the plan calls for combined public and private investment in the semiconductor industry of more than 50 trillion yen over the next decade.

Intel's ambitious fab expansion plans, which are currently facing a temporary halt, are of significant importance. The German government, as reported by HardwareLuxx, is now considering redirecting €10 billion from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) initially allocated to Intel, potentially returning these subsidies to the federal budget. The pause on Intel's investment to 2029-2030 (according to Tom's Hardware) not only threatens Germany's hopes of becoming one of semiconductor industry leaders but has also sparked debate over the intended use of this substantial financial support. Given the rise of geopolitical tensions, the urgency and significance of the German semiconductor industry in the current economic landscape cannot be overstated. The potential negative impact of the halt on Intel's investment is a cause for concern and engagement.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner has proposed that the funds be reallocated to address other economic needs, emphasizing fiscal responsibility amid current challenges. In contrast, Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck, whose department manages the KTF, opposes this reallocation, arguing that the fund should continue to support long-term economic growth and environmental initiatives. This disagreement between Lindner and Habeck illustrates the competing priorities within the government over the best use of public funds in uncertain economic times. The urgency of resolving this impasse is clear, as it will require navigating these tricky political waters while weighing the strategic importance of securing significant semiconductor investments in Germany. If Intel continues its Magdeburg expansion by the end of this decade, the terms for state subsidies might be changed. However, that is something to worry about in the distant future, as the blue giant has the priority of getting its financials back in line first.

Intel has plans to expands its chip packaging and testing operations in Chengdu, China. The company will put $300 million into Intel Products (Chengdu), as stated in a WeChat post by Chengdu's Reform and Development Commission, and reported by TrendForce. Intel announced its Chengdu plant in August 2003 as a semiconductor chip packaging and testing facility in the Chengdu Hi-Tech West Zone. The first phase began in February 2004 with the construction of a chipset factory, which was completed and put into production by the end of 2005. The second phase commenced in August 2005 and was completed in October 2006. By 2007, the packaging and testing facility was fully operational, handling Intel's most advanced processors.

Since its launch in 2003, Intel's Chengdu plant has handled over half of the packaging and testing for Intel's laptop processors. Even with rising US-China tensions, China remains Intel's biggest market making up 27 percent of its total income last year. The announced expansion will increase the packaging and testing ability of server chips and will add a new "customer solutions center." This center aims to make the supply chain more effective, give more support to Chinese customers, and speed up response times. Intel's Chengdu site plays a key role in the company's global supply chain, benefiting from the area's "favorable" business climate, CEO Patrick Gelsinger said during his visit last year.

Intel could get a substantial multibillion-dollar investment from Apollo Global Management Inc., according to a recent report by Bloomberg which relies on inside information from people familiar with the matter. It is said that Apollo is willing to invest up to $5 billion in Intel, and it is worth noting that this came up just after rumors about Qualcomm's intentions for a friendly takeover of Intel emerged last week. Intel and Apollo representatives have declined to comment thus far, however, it is said that Intel executives have been weighing Apollo's proposal.

Apollo is not a newcomer to the chipmaking industry; in 2023, the New York-based company made a $900 million investment in Western Digital buying convertible preferred stock. As for Intel and Apollo, they are no strangers to each other. Just this past June, Intel agreed to sell a stake in a joint venture that controls Intel's Fab 34 plant in Ireland to Apollo for $11 billion. While rumors come and go, one thing is for sure: Intel's short-term future relies on the success of its upcoming products like Arrow Lake desktop architecture to be released on October 24, and its foundry business division.

Texas Instruments (TI) (Nasdaq: TXN) and the U.S. Department of Commerce have signed a non-binding Preliminary Memorandum of Terms for up to $1.6 billion in proposed direct funding under the CHIPS and Science Act to support three 300 mm wafer fabs already under construction in Texas and Utah. In addition, TI expects to receive an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion from the U.S. Department of Treasury's Investment Tax Credit for qualified U.S. manufacturing investments. The proposed direct funding, coupled with the investment tax credit, would help TI provide a geopolitically dependable supply of essential analog and embedded processing semiconductors.

"The historic CHIPS Act is enabling more semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the U.S., making the semiconductor ecosystem stronger and more resilient," said Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of Texas Instruments. "Our investments further strengthen our competitive advantage in manufacturing and technology as we expand our 300 mm manufacturing operations in the U.S. With plans to grow our internal manufacturing to more than 95% by 2030, we're building geopolitically dependable, 300 mm capacity at scale to provide the analog and embedded processing chips our customers will need for years to come."

Cyclic Materials, an advanced metals recycling company building a circular supply chain for rare earth elements and other critical metals, today announced it has received an equity investment from Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, an initiative dedicated to accelerating technology development and deployment of new climate innovations. This investment is representative of Microsoft's commitment to a circular economy and interest in hard drive rare earth element recycling.

Over the past two years, Cyclic has developed a patent-pending technology, CC360, to specifically address the challenge of recovering rare earths contained in end-of-life hard drives. While hard drives are typically sent to an IT asset disposal (ITAD) company at the end of life, this disposal process is designed for data destruction, followed by shredding of drives for the recovery of other metals such as gold and silver. The rare earths contained are currently not recovered. With the CC360, ITAD companies can separate a portion of hard drives for rare earth recovery, while retaining the rest of the hard drives for their traditional process. These separated magnets can then be processed by Cyclic Materials' processing technologies, unlocking an additional value stream from hard drive disposal.

Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) and Apollo (NYSE: APO) today announced a definitive agreement under which Apollo-managed funds and affiliates will lead an investment of $11 billion to acquire from Intel a 49% equity interest in a joint venture entity related to Intel's Fab 34. The transaction represents Intel's second Semiconductor Co-Investment Program (SCIP) arrangement. SCIP is an element of Intel's Smart Capital strategy, a funding approach designed to create financial flexibility to accelerate the company's strategy, including investing in its global manufacturing operations, while maintaining a strong balance sheet.

Located in Leixlip, Ireland, Fab 34 is Intel's leading-edge high-volume manufacturing (HVM) facility designed for wafers using the Intel 4 and Intel 3 process technologies. To date, Intel has invested $18.4 billion in Fab 34. This transaction allows Intel to unlock and redeploy to other parts of its business a portion of this investment while continuing the build-out of Fab 34. As part of its transformation strategy, Intel has committed billions of dollars of investments to regaining process leadership and building out leading-edge wafer fabrication and advanced packaging capacity globally.

Malaysia is firmly positioning itself as a hub for semiconductor investment, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stating the country aims to attract over $100 billion in investment into the industry. This aligns with recent trends in the region, such as China's announcement of a massive $47.5 billion investment fund or Micron's plans to build a new chip factory in Hiroshima, Japan by the end of 2027.

As a major player accounting for 13% of global chip testing and packaging, Malaysia has benefited from strong investments by Intel ($7 billion for an advanced packaging plant) and Infineon ($5.4 billion to expand its power chip plant). The country now hopes around 10 local companies will make substantial investments in new facilities focused on chip design and advanced packaging. To support this goal, the Malaysian government plans to allocate $5.3 billion in fiscal backing, along with tax breaks and subsidies. It is targeting these investments to generate revenues between $210 million and $1 billion for the semiconductor industry in Malaysia.

Beijing has doubled down on its push for semiconductor self-sufficiency with the establishment of a new $47.5 billion investment fund to accelerate growth in the domestic chip sector. The fund, officially registered on May 24th under the name "China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase III", represents the largest of three state-backed vehicles aimed at cultivating China's semiconductor capabilities. The announcement comes as tensions over advanced chip technology continue to escalate between the U.S. and China. Over the past couple years, Washington has steadily ratcheted up export controls on semiconductors to Beijing over national security concerns about potential military applications. These measures have lent new urgency to China's quest for self-sufficiency in chip design and manufacturing.

With a war chest of 344 billion yuan ($47.5 billion), the "Big Fund" dwarfs the combined capital of the first two semiconductor investment vehicles launched in 2014 and 2019. Officials have outlined a multipronged strategy targeting key bottlenecks, focusing on equipment for chip fabrication plants. The fund has bankrolled major projects such as flash memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies and leading foundries like SMIC and Huahong. China's homegrown chip industry still needs to catch up to global leaders like Intel, Samsung, and TSMC. However, the immense scale of state-directed capital illustrates Beijing's unwavering commitment to developing a self-reliant supply chain for semiconductors—a technology viewed as indispensable for economic and military competitiveness. News of the "Big Fund" sent Chinese chip stocks surging over 3% on hopes of fresh financing tailwinds.

SK hynix Inc., the world's leading producer of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips, announced today that it will invest an estimated $3.87 billion in West Lafayette, Indiana to build an advanced packaging fabrication and R&D facility for AI products. The project, the first of its kind in the United States, is expected to drive innovation in the nation's AI supply chain, while bringing more than a thousand new jobs to the region.

The company held an investment agreement ceremony with officials from Indiana State, Purdue University, and the U.S. government at Purdue University in West Lafayette on the 3rd and officially announced the plan. At the event, officials from each party including Governor of Indiana Eric Holcomb, Senator Todd Young, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Arati Prabhakar, Assistant Secretary of Commerce Arun Venkataraman, Secretary of Commerce State of Indiana David Rosenberg, Purdue University President Mung Chiang, Chairman of Purdue Research Foundation Mitch Daniels, Mayor of city of West Lafayette Erin Easter, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States Hyundong Cho, Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Chicago Junghan Kim, SK vice chairman Jeong Joon Yu, SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung and SK hynix Head of Package & Test Choi Woojin, participated.

Samsung debuted its Mach-1 generation of AI processors during a recent shareholder meeting—the South Korean megacorp anticipates an early 2025 launch window. Their application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design is expected to "excel in edge computing applications," with a focus on low power and efficiency-oriented operating environments. Naver Corporation was a key NVIDIA high-end AI customer in South Korea (and Japan), but the leading search platform firm and creator of HyperCLOVA X LLM (reportedly) deliberated on an adoption alternative hardware last October. The Korea Economic Daily believes that Naver's relationship with Samsung is set to grow, courtesy of a proposed $752 million investment: "the world's top memory chipmaker, will supply its next-generation Mach-1 artificial intelligence chips to Naver Corp. by the end of this year."

Reports from last December indicated that the two companies were deep into the process of co-designing power-efficient AI accelerators—Naver's main goal is to finalize a product that will offer eight times more energy efficiency than NVIDIA's H100 AI accelerator. Naver's alleged bulk order—of roughly 150,000 to 200,000 Samsung Mach-1 AI chips—appears to be a stopgap. Industry insiders reckon that Samsung's first-gen AI accelerator is much cheaper when compared to NVIDIA H100 GPU price points—a per-unit figure of $3756 is mentioned in the KED Global article. Samsung is speculated to be shopping its fledgling AI tech to Microsoft and Meta.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced today that Intel and the U.S. Department of Commerce have signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms (PMT) for up to $8.5 billion in direct funding to Intel for commercial semiconductor projects under the CHIPS and Science Act. CHIPS Act funding aims to increase U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and research and development capabilities, especially in leading-edge semiconductors. Intel is the only American company that both designs and manufactures leading-edge logic chips. The proposed funding would help advance Intel's critical semiconductor manufacturing and research and development projects at its sites in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, where the company develops and produces many of the world's most advanced chips and semiconductor packaging technologies.

"Today is a defining moment for the U.S. and Intel as we work to power the next great chapter of American semiconductor innovation," said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. "AI is supercharging the digital revolution and everything digital needs semiconductors. CHIPS Act support will help to ensure that Intel and the U.S. stay at the forefront of the AI era as we build a resilient and sustainable semiconductor supply chain to power our nation's future."

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.

Two years ago, Intel Corporation and the Italian Government initiated negotiations over the "enabling" of a new state-of-the-art back-end manufacturing facility—a potential investment of up to 4.5 billion euros was mentioned at the time. Italy's chipmaking fund was put together in order to attract several big semiconductor firms, but Team Blue appeared to be the primary target. This week, Minister Adolfo Urso confirmed to media outlets that Intel had: "given up or postponed its investments in France and Italy, compared with others that it plans in Germany." Intel has not commented on this announcement according to a Reuters report—a spokesperson declined to make a statement.

Italy's Business Minister stated that he will welcome a continuation of negotiations, if Intel leadership chooses to diversify its construction portfolio outside of Germany: "if it decides to complete those projects, we are still here." His nation is set to receive further investments, following a recent announcement from Silicon Box—the Singapore-headquartered advanced semiconductor packaging company has signed an up to €3.2 billion deal. Their new Italian facility will: "enable next generation applications in artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC)," and other segments. Urso reckons that "there will be others in coming months." He also added that a ministry task force had conducted talks with unnamed Taiwanese groups.

Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, control their own data and take advantage of technology opportunities in areas such as transportation, communications, commerce, entertainment and healthcare. AI, the most important technology of our time, is turbocharging innovation across every facet of society. It's expected to generate trillions of dollars in economic dividends and productivity gains. Countries are investing in sovereign AI to develop and harness such benefits on their own. Sovereign AI refers to a nation's capabilities to produce artificial intelligence using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks.

Why Sovereign AI Is Important
The global imperative for nations to invest in sovereign AI capabilities has grown since the rise of generative AI, which is reshaping markets, challenging governance models, inspiring new industries and transforming others—from gaming to biopharma. It's also rewriting the nature of work, as people in many fields start using AI-powered "copilots." Sovereign AI encompasses both physical and data infrastructures. The latter includes sovereign foundation models, such as large language models, developed by local teams and trained on local datasets to promote inclusiveness with specific dialects, cultures and practices. For example, speech AI models can help preserve, promote and revitalize indigenous languages. And LLMs aren't just for teaching AIs human languages, but for writing software code, protecting consumers from financial fraud, teaching robots physical skills and much more.

Lee Kang-Wook, Vice President of Research and Development at SK Hynix, has discussed the increased importance of advanced chip packaging with Bloomberg News. In an interview with the media company's business section, Lee referred to a tradition of prioritizing the design and fabrication of chips: "the first 50 years of the semiconductor industry has been about the front-end." He believes that the latter half of production processes will take precedence in the future: "...but the next 50 years is going to be all about the back-end." He outlined a "more than $1 billion" investment into South Korean facilities—his department is hoping to "improve the final steps" of chip manufacturing.

SK Hynix's Head of Packaging Development pioneered a novel method of packaging the third generation of high bandwidth technology (HBM2E)—that innovation secured NVIDIA as a high-profile and long term customer. Demand for Team Green's AI GPUs has boosted the significance of HBM technologies—Micron and Samsung are attempting to play catch up with new designs. South Korea's leading memory supplier is hoping to stay ahead in the next-gen HBM contest—supposedly 12-layer fifth generation samples have been submitted to NVIDIA for approval. SK Hynix's Vice President recently revealed that HBM production volumes for 2024 have sold out—currently company leadership is considering the next steps for market dominance in 2025. The majority of the firm's newly announced $1 billion budget will be spent on the advancement of MR-MUF and TSV technologies, according to their R&D chief.

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.

Tech giant Microsoft and Paris-based startup Mistral AI, an innovator in open-source AI model development, have announced a new multi-year partnership to accelerate AI innovation and expand access to Mistral's state-of-the-art models. The collaboration will leverage Azure's cutting-edge AI infrastructure to propel Mistral's research and bring its innovations to more customers globally. The partnership focuses on three core areas. First, Microsoft will provide Mistral with Azure AI supercomputing infrastructure to power advanced AI training and inference for Mistral's flagship models like Mistral-Large. Second, the companies will collaborate on AI research and development to push AI model's boundaries. And third, Azure's enterprise capabilities will give Mistral additional opportunities to promote, sell, and distribute their models to Microsoft customers worldwide.

However, an investment in a European startup can not go smoothly without the constant eyesight of the European Union authorities and regulators to oversee the deal. According to Bloomberg, an EU spokesperson on Tuesday claimed that the EU regulators will perform an analysis of Microsoft's investment into Mistral after receiving a copy of the agreement between the two parties. While there is no formal investigation yet, if EU regulators continue to probe Microsoft's deal and intentions, they could launch a complete formal investigation that could lead to the termination of Microsoft's plans. Of course, the formal investigation is still on hold, but investing in EU startups might become unfeasible for American tech giants if the EU regulators continue to push the scrutiny of every investment made in companies based on EU soil.

Various news outlets have been keeping tabs on OpenAI's CEO—Sam Altman—the AI technology evangelist was reported to be pursuing an ambitious proprietary AI chip project in early 2024. Inside sources pointed to late-January negotiations with important investment personnel in the Middle East—many believe that OpenAI leadership is exploring the idea of establishing its own network of semiconductor production plants. Late last week, The Wall Street Journal followed up on last month's AI industry rumors: "(Altman) has another great ambition: raising trillions of dollars to reshape the global semiconductor industry. The OpenAI chief executive officer is in talks with investors including the United Arab Emirates government to raise funds for a wildly ambitious tech initiative that would boost the world's chip-building capacity, expand its ability to power AI." One anonymous insider reckons that "the project could require raising as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion."

TSMC is reportedly in the equation—Altman allegedly conducted talks with top brass last month—their expertise in cutting edge fabrication techniques would be of great value, although it is somewhat futile to reveal too many industry secrets given the sheer scale of OpenAI's (reported) aggressive expansion plans. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests that the embryonic venture is far more "open" than previously reported—a collaborative venture could be established once funding is secured, although Altman & Co. face "significant obstacles" en route. WSJ proposes that the somewhat OpenAI-centric fabrication network is best founded by a joint partnership—involving multiple investors, contract chip manufacturers (perhaps TSMC), and energy/power providers. OpenAI appears to be the "primary buyer" of resultant fabricated AI chips, with manufacturing services also offered to other clients. The scale of such an endeavor is put into perspective by WSJ's analysis (via inside sources): "Such a sum of investment would dwarf the current size of the global semiconductor industry. Global sales of chips were $527 billion last year and are expected to rise to $1 trillion annually by 2030. Global sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment—the costly machinery needed to run chip factories—last year were $100 billion, according to an estimate by the industry group SEMI."

In a major stride toward building a shared national research infrastructure, the U.S. National Science Foundation has launched the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource pilot program with significant support from NVIDIA. The initiative aims to broaden access to the tools needed to power responsible AI discovery and innovation. It was announced Wednesday in partnership with 10 other federal agencies as well as private-sector, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. "The breadth of partners that have come together for this pilot underscores the urgency of developing a National AI Research Resource for the future of AI in America," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "By investing in AI research through the NAIRR pilot, the United States unleashes discovery and impact and bolsters its global competitiveness."

NVIDIA's commitment of $30 million in technology contributions over two years is a key factor in enlarging the scale of the pilot, fueling the potential for broader achievements and accelerating the momentum toward full-scale implementation. "The NAIRR is a vision of a national research infrastructure that will provide access to computing, data, models and software to empower researchers and communities," said Katie Antypas, director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at the NSF. "Our primary goals for the NAIRR pilot are to support fundamental AI research and domain-specific research applying AI, reach broader communities, particularly those currently unable to participate in the AI innovation ecosystem, and refine the design for the future full NAIRR," Antypas added.

The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it issued orders to five companies requiring them to provide information regarding recent investments and partnerships involving generative AI companies and major cloud service providers. The agency's 6(b) inquiry will scrutinize corporate partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape. The compulsory orders were sent to Alphabet, Inc., Amazon.com, Inc., Anthropic PBC, Microsoft Corp., and OpenAI, Inc.

"History shows that new technologies can create new markets and healthy competition. As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity, "said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. "Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition."