Tag: Computer Chips

Tech Stocks Tumble on Worries Over A.I. Spending and China’s Chips

Media Library

A global technology stock sell-off intensified on Tuesday, underpinned by worries over hefty bills for the build-out of artificial intelligence systems and concerns over tougher competition from China. The Nasdaq Composite index, chock-full of big technology companies, came close on Tuesday to falling into correction, Wall Street’s term of a drop of 10 percent or more from its recent peak, before rebounding and ending the day down just 0.2 percent. Still, the slide among top chipmakers remained. The American chip company Micron declined more than 8 percent on Tuesday, as…

Stocks Sink on Anxiety About Tech and A.I. Spending

Media Library

Stocks around the world tumbled on Friday, dragged down by a sell-off in the big technology companies developing artificial intelligence after signs of increasing competition from China intensified investor unease around eye-popping spending on A.I. The S&P 500 fell 1 percent, taking its loss for the week to 1.6 percent, led lower by the biggest tech companies. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index declined 1.4 percent. Stock markets in China, Japan and across Europe also fell. Signs of investor concern were most apparent in the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, a benchmark for…

China’s Chip Champion to Raise Billions in Race for A.I. Control

Media Library

China’s largest maker of memory chips is raising billions of dollars in a blockbuster public offering to pursue the nation’s agenda of technological self-sufficiency and leadership in the global race to develop artificial intelligence. ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, said in a filing on Wednesday that it had roughly doubled the price of its offering on the Shanghai exchange from earlier guidance, based on strong investor demand. It is seeking to raise the equivalent of up to $9.8 billion. That would be the largest initial public offering in Asia…

China Takes Supercomputer Crown From U.S. For First Time Since 2017

Media Library

China took back a coveted computing crown from the United States on Tuesday, ratcheting up a fierce technological competition that has implications for science, national security and geopolitics. LineShine, a massive computing system in Shenzhen, China, was declared the world’s fastest by a group of researchers using a set of standard tests for supercomputers. Besides raw speed, the system stood out because it uses only standard microprocessors and not the special-purpose chips called graphics processing units, which most high-end supercomputers rely on for heavy number crunching. That underlying design could…

A.I. Boom Ignites Asian Chip Companies

Media Library

At Taiwan’s biggest computing show this month, Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, was mobbed as if he were a rock star, trailed by a crowd from booth to booth as he signed autographs and posed for selfies. At the stand of SK Hynix, one of his most important South Korean suppliers, Mr. Huang picked up a marker and left a message. Atop a reflective wafer of memory — a component of Nvidia’s A.I. supercomputers now in short supply — he wrote: “Please make more :).” It was only…

China Aims A.I. at Predicting Who Could Pose a Political Risk

Media Library

A Chinese company has been trying to develop artificial intelligence-powered technology that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future. The work, which appears to be in the research stage, is ripped out of dystopian science fiction, offering a glimpse of a world in which an authoritarian state is able to move against its citizens before they begin any public dissent. The Chinese company, Geedge Networks, sells a commercial version of the Great Firewall, the surveillance and censorship…

Chinese Military Sought Nvidia Chips for Years, Report Says

Media Library

Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, has said China’s military doesn’t rely on chips from his California-based company. But an analysis of six years of Chinese records shows that China’s military has been openly seeking Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips since 2019. Chinese records reviewed by Wirescreen, a software platform that provides information about Chinese companies, showed that the People’s Liberation Army has stepped up its efforts to acquire artificial intelligence chips, even after the U.S. government restricted semiconductor sales to foreign adversaries including China. The records document instances when suppliers agreed…

Elon Musk and Other CEOs on Trump’s Trip to China Sought Relief

Media Library

The chief executives who accompanied President Trump to a meeting and grand banquet in China last week were seeking to curry favor with both the Trump administration and the Chinese government, keenly aware that the support of either could make or break their businesses. But the delegation — which included executives from Boeing, Apple, Nvidia, Cargill and other firms — arrived in Beijing with a variety of commercial complaints about doing business in China, some of which are public, some of which have not been previously reported. In recent weeks,…

Nvidia’s Profit Hits $58.3 Billion as A.I. Boom Gathers More Steam

Media Library

Another huge quarterly profit announced by the chip maker Nvidia on Wednesday provided solid evidence that Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence spending spree is still gathering steam. Nvidia said profit in its most recent quarter was $58.3 billion, up 211 percent from a year earlier and topping expectations by financial analysts. Just three years ago, the Silicon Valley company’s quarterly profit was $2 billion — about one-thirtieth of what it is today. Nvidia’s chips are an essential part of big A.I. projects, and other tech companies have been lining up to…

Trump Approved a Nvidia Chip for Sale in China. Beijing Doesn’t Want It.

Media Library

When President Trump announced late last year that Nvidia could sell one of its most powerful chips to China, the deal looked like a rare win-win in a fraying geopolitical relationship. It would provide a major boost for China’s artificial intelligence ambitions, while handing a win to America’s leading chipmaker. Cutting-edge A.I. systems run on staggering amounts of computing power, and Nvidia’s chips are considered the gold standard worldwide. Chinese competitors have yet to build anything that rivals Nvidia’s best, and Mr. Trump’s decision undercut years of U.S. policy designed…