Huawei’s Ascend and Kunpeng progress shows how China is rebuilding an AI compute stack under sanctions

Huawei used its New Year message to highlight progress across its Ascend AI and Kunpeng CPU ecosystems, pointing to the rollout of Atlas 900 supernodes and rapid growth in domestic developer adoption as “a solid foundation…

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UK company shoots a 1,000-degree furnace into space to study off-world chip manufacturing — semiconductors made in space could be ‘up to 4,000 times purer’ than Earthly equivalents

British startup Space Forge has just successfully turned on its first in-orbit furnace, reaching 1,000 degrees Celsius in space. This is a crucial first step for the company in studying the feasibility of manufacturing chi…

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Musk to expand xAI’s training capacity to a monstrous 2 gigawatts with third building at Memphis site — announcement comes days after Musk vows to have ‘more AI compute than everyone else’

Elon Musk has announced that xAI has purchased a third building at its Memphis, Tennessee site to bolster the company’s overall compute power to a gargantuan two gigawatts.
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China warns the Netherlands to ‘immediately correct its mistakes’ over Nexperia saga that has disrupted auto production — chip shipments remain suspended, auto industry suffering from undersupply

Beijing says that the Netherlands is not taking steps to resolve the Nexperia issue, thus extending the chip shortage affecting automotive makers across the globe.
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Asus announces product price hikes starting January 5, and AI is to blame — RAM and storage cost pressure cited as main trigger for pricing increases

Asus says that it will increase prices on several product lines starting January 5, as prices for memory and storage components continue to rise. TrendForce estimates that laptop shipments could shrink by as much as 10.1% …

SK hynix to build first U.S. packaging plant for HBM — plugs critical hole in U.S. supply chain, $3.9B investment challenges TSMC and reshapes AI supply chains

SK hynix is bringing its HBM ambitions to U.S. soil with a $3.9 billion plan to build its first domestic manufacturing facility — a 2.5D advanced packaging plant in West Lafayette, Indiana.
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Russia cracks down on ‘illegal’ cryptomining with prison terms up to five years — Kremlin will begin prosecuting in 2027

The Russian government plans to penalize ‘illegal’ mining of cryptocurrency to prison terms of up to five years.

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U.S. cybersecurity experts plead guilty for ransomware attacks, face 20 years in prison each — group demanded up to $10 million from each victim

Two former cybersecurity experts pled guilty to conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion for deploying ransomware against several victims. The perpetrators are facing 20 years in prison each, with sentencing set in Mar…

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SoftBank stakes $4B on securing AI data center power and capacity — DigitalBridge purchase indicative of AI industry’s increasing investments in energy supply

SoftBank has agreed to acquire DigitalBridge in a deal valuing the digital infrastructure investor at roughly $4 billion, including debt.
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U.S. grants Samsung and SK hynix 2026 licenses for chipmaking tool shipments to China — annual approvals replace dated waiver system

The U.S. government has approved annual export licenses allowing Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to ship chipmaking equipment to their manufacturing facilities in China throughout 2026.
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