Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 1

At WWDC Apple unveiled its impending iOS 18 update schedule to be rolled out later this year will feature integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT, and as you would probably imagine, the deal between the two companies would have included millions of dollars. However, that reportedly isn't the case.

Known Apple insider and Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurmann has published a new article explaining the deal between OpenAI and Apple for integrating ChatGPT into the next version of Apple's operating system didn't involve a single penny of money. How? Apple simply views giving OpenAI access to its customer base as a commodity.

According to anonymous sources talking to Gurmann, "Apple believes pushing OpenAI's brand and technology to hundreds of millions of its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments." In fact, Apple will likely benefit monetarily when it rolls out generative AI capabilities to consumers, which will likely cost them a payment in some form. Gurmann also points out that as more people use ChatGPT the more OpenAI's expenses increase as it pays Microsoft to host the AI-powered service on its Azure servers.

X is reportedly coming after its former employees for being allegedly overpaid through currency conversion between the US and Australian dollars.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that laid-off Australian X workers received an email from Elon Musk's social media platform requesting that they return entitlements that were overpaid to them. The former employees received emails from X's Asia Pacific human resources department, which stated there was a "significant overpayment in error in January 2023". Notably, the company is requesting anywhere between $1,500 and $70,000 for each employee.

As you can probably imagine, a total number of zero employees have paid back the requested amount, according to the Sydney Morning Heral. More specifically, X said the overpayment is related to the "deferred cash compensation" that occurred when the company issued employees shares when the employee joined then-Twitter. "These shares were valued at $US54.20 ($82) each, the price at which Musk bought Twitter in 2022, and the total number of shares acquired by an employee was based on the length of their tenure at the company."

ASML has announced more plans for a new lithography tool of the fut ure, something that will extend design limits for the very highest transistor-density chips.

ASML's former president, Martin van den Brink, surprised experts with the announcement of a next-gen "Hyper-NA" EUV lithography technology that is still "in the early stages of development," according to global R&D organization imec, which is working closely with ASML, reports EE Times.

ASML's former president, Martin van den Brink, said in a May presentation at imec's ITF World in Antwerp: "Moving forward long term, we need to improve our illumination system, and we have to go to Hyper-NA. In parallel, we have to drive the productivity on all of our systems to 400 to 500 wafers per hour".

The US government is considering further restrictions on China's access to chip technology required for AI, aiming at new hardware that's hitting the market: GAA (Gate-All-Around) technology and HBM, two key parts of AI chips.

China would have its access to Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor technology blocked, which is used to manufacture bleeding-edge chips, as well as access to High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which comes in many forms: HBM3 has been powering NVIDIA's current-gen Hopper H100, while ultra-fast HBM3E is inside Blackwell B200, and HBM4 is coming shortly.

GAA nanosheet technology improves density while providing power and performance improvements, but it's only used on the most cutting-edge process nodes. Samsung has been using GAA technology with its 3nm node, Intel will use GAA in its upcoming Intel 20A node, and TSMC will use GAA with its upcoming A16 process node.

Intel is reportedly halting plans on a new chipmaking facility in Israel, that would've come at a cost of $25 billion.

The news is coming from Israeli financial news website Calcalist, with Intel neither confirming or denying the news. Intel was asked about the report into its facility in Israel, with an Intel spokesperson saying in a statement: "Israel continues to be one of our key global manufacturing and R&D sites and we remain fully committed to the region.

"Managing large-scale projects, especially in our industry, often involves adapting to changing timelines. Our decisions are based on business conditions, market dynamics and responsible capital management".

NVIDIA now has a market cap of over $3 trillion, thanks to the insatiable AI GPU demand that has been fueling the money for the last 12 months.

NVIDIA stock has increased by over a whopping 3224% in the last 5 years, with the company splitting its stock 10-to-1 later this month. NVIDIA isn't the only one in the $3 trillion+ milestone club, with Apple hitting $3 trillion in market cap during intraday trading in January 2022, while Microsoft hit $3 trillion in January 2024.

It was only back in February 2024 that NVIDIA reached a $2 trillion market cap... and now, just months later, another $1 trillion has been added for the glorious milestone of $3+ trillion. This is all with the current-gen Hopper H100 AI GPU absolutely dominating -- with estimates that NVIDIA has 90%+ of the AI GPU market share -- with the beefed-up H200 AI GPU coming soon, and the next-gen Blackwell GPU architecture coming soon.

Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm have reportedly signed "major contracts" with TSMC, which has eaten up all of its 3nm family process production capacity... with a queue of customers spreading out all the way into 2026.

In a new report from UDN, the outlet quotes industry insiders as saying that TSMC isn't a company that will increase its prices casually and that even if the company has a leading edge in advanced manufacturing processes (which it does, by far), there are "many ways to reflect value to customers."

TSMC has a huge 3nm family process, with N3, N3E, N3P as well as N3X, N3A, and more. Existing N3 technology continues to get upgraded, with N3E being mass-produced in Q4 2023, targeting applications like AI accelerators and AI GPUs, high-end smartphone chips, and data centers.

In a new report by The New York Times, Microsoft, OpenAI, and NVIDIA are being targeted for an antitrust investigation led by the US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Under the new arrangement, the Justice Department will lead the investigation into the behavior of NVIDIA, which is by far the biggest AI GPU maker on the planet with AI GPU dominance of 90%+ market share. The Justice Department will see if NVIDIA has violated antitrust laws, according to The New York Times' sources.

According to The New York Times' sources, the FTC will play the lead role in investigating the conduct of OpenAI, the maker of the infamous ChatGPT chatbot, and Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI and made multiple other deals with AI people.

South Korea has found what could potentially be a global game-changer: a massive reserve of oil and gas offshore close to its southeastern territory in the East Sea.

The news comes from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who provided the world with the news in his first televised national briefing, where the president gave the energy minister the green light to begin exploration drilling for the oil and gas prospects. Yoon told the press: "The possibility of the area containing as much as 14 billion barrels of oil and gas is very high. Today, I gave my approval for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to go ahead with the drilling for exploration deep in the East Sea".

Last year, the presidential office said the government commissioned an in-depth analysis of the area, searching for potential oil and gas reserves with US-based research firm ACT-Geo, after an earlier study teased the high possibility of oil and gas reserves near the Donghae gas field.

We're counting down the hours into Computex 2024, where NVIDIA will be showing off a bunch of the coolest things we can imagine... and now, their NVLink dominance is being fought against.

The interconnect market is a hot one for servers right now, especially in the age of AI. We've now got technology giants including Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Google, HPE, Meta, and Microsoft have formed an Ultra Accelerator Promotor Group that focuses on developing an AI-focused interconnect system specifically aimed at data centers.

The group has announced its lofty intentions with UALink (Ultra Accelerator Link) which aims to connect accelerators through an open -- non NVIDIA exclusive -- protocol.