TSMC has announced its intention to expand its investment in advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, pledging an additional $100 billion.

The company already has $65 billion worth of investments into advanced semiconductor manufacturing operations at its fab in Phoenix, Arizona, with TSMC's total investment in teh US expected to reach $165 billion. This expansion includes plans for 3 new fabrication plants, two new advanced packaging plants, and a major R&D team center, with the company said "solidifying this project as the largest single foreign direct investment in US history".

TSMC expects to create hundreds of billions of dollars of semiconductor value for AI and other cutting-edge chips, with TSMC's expanded investment expected to create 40,000 construction jobs over the next 4 years, as well as creating tens of thousands of high-paying, high-tech jobs in advanced chip manufacturing and R&D on US soil.

Sony's new Future Immersive Entertainment technology is just a concept design, but it could pave the way for next-gen arcade gaming.

Always keen on experimenting and designing, Sony has put together a unique sensory experience set in the worlds of the mega-hit Last of Us video game series. It's called a Future Immersive Entertainment concept, and it essentially combines a ton of different technologies to give players a super-immersive gameplay experience sans headset or console. All you need is a new prototype R&D controller specially made by Sony.

Sony has packed in high-end OLED display tech alongside booming audio to bring the grisly world of The Last of Us to life, but that's not enough: Sony wants you to feel like you're actually there. That's why the experience, which is essentially a stage with screens in a semicircle wall on one side, is packed with scent dispensers that change up smells based on what's happening. As a 90s kid who grew up when Universal Studios was new, I can only imagine the scents involved.

AMD's next-generation Zen 6-based Medusa Halo APU will be a game-changer for the company, packing 24 cores and 48 threads of Zen 6 CPU power joined by a new SKU rumored with a monster 48 GPU cores (up from 40 GPU cores on Strix Halo APUs).

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, one of his sources said: "I can confirm Medusa Halo has at least a variant with 48 CUs, and also that there should be a 384-bit option in addition to a 256-bit option for the bus".

AMD's new Medusa Point APU will feature a single Zen 6 CCD with 12 cores and 24 threads, with between 16 CUs and 32 CUs of RDNA 3.X integrated GPU on a 256-bit memory bus, very similar to Strix Point APUs. However, the flagship Medusa Halo APU is rumored with up to 48 CUs of RDNA 3.X GPU on a possibly far higher 384-bit memory bus, that should see 30-50% performance gains over the already very impressive Strix Halo APU.

Rainbow Six Siege will soon become a DX12 game on PC, Ubisoft today announced.

Ubisoft needs a win, and its hail mary game plan includes a big overhaul of Rainbow Six Siege. The shooter is entering its 10th year on the market with no sequel in sight, with the teams instead focusing on continually updating the game over time. Now the tactical FPS is getting its biggest upgrade yet with Rainbow Six Siege X, a major refresh that Ubisoft says will deliver the "biggest transformation in the game's history."

Devs are paving the way for R6 Siege X by switching over fully to DirectX 12, meaning video cards running DX11 won't be able to run the game after the move. The decision has been criticized due to Ubisoft's DX12 implementation in R6 that has led to stuttering issues and ~8% frame drops from DX11. Ubisoft affirms that a lot of the DX12 issues have been ironed out thanks to player feedback and testing.

Shortly after shutting down a studio, laying off workers across Western studios, and cancelling a handful of projects, billion-dollar games titan NetEase tells investors that it's committed to supporting "master creators" in its quest for overseas game releases.

Little over a week ago, Bloomberg ran a story on NetEase that painted a turbulent picture at the Chinese firm. NetEase has reportedly cancelled a dozen or so games at the whims of its CEO, and there's been the layoffs at Western game dev units (including the Marvel Rivals team in the West). NetEase had also shut down Ouka Studios shortly after the team released the recent Visions of Mana remake.

Now we have more comments from management on this topic. In a Q4 2024 earnings call, company VP of corporate development Bill Pang says that support for overseas projects is important and something NetEase will continue to do.

Samsung highlights the possibilities for its foldable OLED technology with a PC gaming handheld that closes like a book.

Samsung is demoing an interesting tech concept at its MWC 2025 booth: it's a device that's part of the firm's new Flex Gaming line, and it's basically a Steam Deck that can fold in half. It's important to note that this isn't a consumer-facing bit of hardware, more of something that Samsung put together to illustrate what OEMs could do with its foldable displays.

What's interesting about the Flex--apart from the obvious bendable screen--is how the joysticks can remain upright even when the device is shut. Users wouldn't have to deal with a half-joystick circle-pad like the 3DS, or some sort of innovative new restrictive design--the basic analog-style joysticks have been allocated for size.

NVIDIA and Broadcom are reportedly running manufacturing tests on Intel's new 18A process node, showing some much-needed early confidence for the company and its semiconductor business.

In a new report from Reuters, we're hearing that the two tests haven't been reported previously, and indicate that the companies are moving closer to the decision of whether they'll commit hundreds of millions of dollars worth of manufacturing contracts to Intel Foundry Services (IFS).

NVIDIA and MediaTek are TSMC customers, so winning these two chip giants over would be a huge deal for Intel, while its main CPU competitor in AMD, is "also evaluating whether Intel's 18A manufacturing process is suitable for its needs but it was unclear if it had sent test chips through the factory".

Windows 11's most recent (optional) update has been causing serious problems with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, according to some reports - though Microsoft has also fixed a separate issue with this patch.

Let's start with that nasty Black Ops 6 bug, with the game seemingly being scuppered by KB5052093, which is the preview update for February 2025 for Windows 11 24H2.

Windows Latest picked up on this and points out that reports of this happening seem to be scattered, with just a reader complaining and a couple of gamers on Reddit.

If you want to easy find out if your new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series GPU is missing any ROPs, CPU-Z Validator will now test your system and warn you if you've got missing ROPs.

CPU-Z can already provide basic information on your graphics card, but it doesn't have the same feature set as GPU-Z, which is dedicated to GPUs. CPU-Z covers multiple components: CPU, RAM, motherboard, and GPU specs but in a new update to the Validator, it will warn users if they've got an affected RTX 50 series GPU with missing ROPs that reduce performance (and need to be sent away to be replaced to the AIB manufacturer, more on that in the stories below).

CPU-Z Validator will warn users "This GPU is supposed to have X ROPs" which would point to your RTX 5090, RTX 5080, or RTX 5070 Ti with missing ROPs.

TSMC is expected to begin mass production of its next-gen A16 process node in Taiwan by the second half of 2026, and then "connect Taiwan and the United States" by introducing A16 process production at its third factory in Arizona, USA by 2028.

In a new report from UDN, we're learning that TSMC's first wafer fab in Arizona has begun mass production, with TSMC's Q1 2025 board meeting specially held in the Arizona plant to allow board members to receive first-hand knowledge that mass production was achieved at its new plant in the US.

UDN reports that the market believes that TSMC is showing its attention to the US market, and goodwill to the US government and the new Trump administration. TSMC's next-gen A16 process node is the first angstrom (smaller than nano) process node used by TSMC, with the company's nano process technology named the N series (N3, N4, N5, etc).

File this one under 'o' for ominous, but there's been yet more chatter that NVIDIA's RTX 5070 GPU is going to be a bit of a no-show stock-wise on its launch day - this time from a big Swedish retailer.

As a quick refresher, the RTX 5070 is the next GPU due to emerge from the Blackwell stable (and the only remaining officially announced graphics card). It's set to go on sale March 5, in just two days, although the GPU was delayed from an original release timeframe of February (a date wasn't specified by NVIDIA, just the month).

Rumors have indicated for some time that RTX 5070 stock could end up very thin on the ground - and that slight delay would seem to back up this idea - but now VideoCardz spotted a message from said major retailer in Sweden stating that essentially it hasn't got any of these GPUs at all yet.

NetEase is ready to support Marvel Rivals for the long run as the company simultaneously shutters studios and cancels other projects.

Gaming's new live service darling Marvel Rivals is doing incredibly well right now with over 40 million players to date. The game isn't without controversy though: despite the F2P shooter's mega success, NetEase laid off the Western team that worked on Marvel Rivals as part of its new restructuring plan (this same plan also saw NetEase cutting back investments in fledgling game studios and projects).

Now we have comments from NetEase on Marvel Rivals' performance and what's to come. The game has done so well that the billion-dollar Chinese games giant is ready to support Marvel Rivals for a full decade. Crossover events and promos are also coming, but we're not sure exactly what this means--will Rivals become the next Fortnite, or will the crossovers be in-universe?

Rockstar Games has added a 13th group to its worldwide support studio ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6's expected Fall 2025 release.

Today, Rockstar Games announced that it has acquired Video Games Deluxe, a long-time collaborator that has assisted development on a number of projects. The Pyrmont, Sydney-based studio will now become Rockstar Australia, and the 13th company in a regional webwork that spans everywhere from India to Toronto.

Rockstar Australia could end up being a smaller team, at least at the start: LinkedIn estimates that Video Game Deluxe has 2-10 employees. The studio had previously worked alongside Rockstar on games like the LA Noire VR release and even helped optimize the new GTA trilogy for mobiles and consoles--the latter of which received some hefty visual tweaks and improvements.

AI servers have been used in a fraud case that Singapore announced last week, with NVIDIA AI GPUs that were supplied by US companies like Dell, with banned AI chips from entering China according to a government minister on Monday.

Singapore has charged three men with a fraud case involving smuggling NVIDIA AI GPUs from the city-state to Chinese AI firm DeepSeek. Channel News Asia reports that the cases were linked to the alleged movement of NVIDIA chips from Singapore to be used by DeepSeek, "without identifying its source" reports Reuters.

Singapore's Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam told reporters on Monday that AI servers involved in the case were supplied by Dell Technologies and Super Micro Computer, before they were sent to Malaysia. He said: "whether Malaysia was the final destination... we do not know for a certain at this point" adding that authorities were investigating the case independently after an anonymous tip-off.

EK has just unveiled its first waterblock for NVIDIA's new in-house GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, with the introduction of the new Quantum Vector³ FE RTX™ 5090 waterblock.

The new EK Quantum Vector³ FE RTX™ 5090 waterblock has been designed to specifically handle the three-part PCB design of the RTX 5090 Founders Edition: GPU/VRM/Power, PCIe interface, and display connectors. It's also compatible with EK's Matrix7 RGB system, with the backplate serving as a structural element for the RTX 5090 PCB parts, where you can connect daughterboards and it also serves as a passive c ooler.

We don't have any thermal performance results from EK just yet, but we do know that it will retail for 329 euros, which works out to around $342 USD or so. If you are splashing down the cash for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition and wanted what should be one of the best water blocks made for the RTX 5090 FE specifically, then you are already clicking the 'buy now' button.

Intel has officially delayed the construction of its new Ohio One semiconductor manufacturing site, delaying the launch of its new fab into the next decade.

The company originally planned its Ohio semiconductor fab for 2025, but moved it to 2027-2028 not too long ago, and now that has been pushed back again until at least 2030. The first phase of the Ohio site (Mod 1) will now be completed in 2030, with production starting between 2030 and 2031, while Mod 2 is expected in 2031, with operations in 2032.

Intel's $28 billion Ohio chipmaking factories are located in New Albany, with the semiconductor fab plan changes made so that Intel can align its factory operations with market demand and "manage capital responsibility" said Naga Chandrasekaran, general manager of Intel Foundry Manufacturing in an email to staffers that was shared in a press release.

Apple will be announcing its new M4 MacBook Air laptops, powered by its new in-house M4 processor... any day this week according to the latest reports, as well as the new M4 iPad Air.

In his latest PowerOn newsletter, Bloomberg writer Mark Gurman reports that Apple plans to launch the new M4 MacBook Air models as soon as this week, with the new M4 iPad Air and iPad 11 "probably won't come in the next few days". We should expect the new M4 MacBook Air announcement on its own, like the iPhone 16e had.

Apple is beginning to wind down inventory of its current-gen iPad Air at its retail stores, a trend Gurman writes is similar to the now-discontinued iPhone SE and existing MacBook Air. This is paving the way for the soon-to-be-announced M4 iPad Air and M4 MacBook Air.

Former Intel CEO Craig Garrett has written a new opinion piece on Fortune, where he wraps up the article by saying "fire the Intel board and rehire Pat Gelsinger".

Garrett has an informative piece on Fortunte, writing a fantastic explanation into the situation with Intel from the former CEOs perspective. Garrett says that the only solution for Intel's problems is to break the company into two pieces: a design company and a wafer fabrication (foundry) company, and he also agrees that Intel shouldn't sell its foundry division (IFS) to TSMC, but "strongly disagree with their argument that Intel should be broken up".

He whips: "The board members are well meaning but off target. They are two academics and two former government bureaucrats, just the type of folks you want dictating strategy in the ruggedly competitive semiconductor industry".

AMD's next-generation "Medusa Point" APUs based on the new Zen 6 architecture were rumored to feature an RDNA 4, RDNA 5, or unified UDNA GPU, but fresh rumors suggest that's not happening and that an updated RDNA 3.X GPU will be used in the new monster APU.

The next-generation Zen 6-based Medusa Point APU is reportedly not using the just-launched RDNA 4 architecture, or the upcoming RDNA 5 or UDNA chips, but rather an upgraded RDNA 3.X GPU according to leaker Golden Pig Upgrade on Weibo. There have been rumors of RDNA 5 or UDNA on Medusa Point and Zen 6, but the new APUs will continue using the proven RDNA 3.X GPU.

AMD has used its new RDNA 3.5 GPUs inside of its recent Zen 5-based Strix Point and just-launched Strix Halo APUs, with 16 GPU cores inside of Strix Point and a whopping 40 GPU cores inside of Strix Halo. AMD could beef up the GPU cores again for Medusa Point, without the advancements and features from RDNA 4/5 or UDNA, given its an APU and not meant for high-end ray-traced gaming.

Activision is making a new Guitar Hero game...for mobile.

It looks like a new Guitar Hero game is in the works, but it's not the one that we were all hoping for. Instead, it's Guitar Hero Mobile. Things get even tougher for Activision when the accidental leak came from its own Instagram account, and the advertisement uses AI (as a reminder, Activision is a multi-billion dollar video games publisher that made $7.5 billion in 2022).

"Play your way - Guitar Hero goes mobile," the ad reads. Activision had published the post 2 days ago and it's riddled with comments about the AI usage.