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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.

Samsung Foundry is expected to unveil plans for its cutting-edge 1nm process node in July, with mass production expected to kick off in 2026.

The South Korean giant has plans to unveil its next-gen 1nm process node schedule at the Foundry Forum & SAFE Forum 2024, which will be held in the US between June 12-13, according to Korean media. It wasn't too long ago that Samsung bumped up its 1nm production timeline from 2027 to 2026, with the 2nm "SF2" process debuting in 2025, we still don't know much about it... for now.

Samsung looks to be ahead of its semiconductor competitors, with Intel planning to mass produce its new Intel 10A (1nm) process in 2028, while TSMC plans its next-gen 1nm process node for 2030. If Samsung can nail this, then the company would be many years ahead of its competitors. But now, we need to see performance, quality, great yields, and most of all... customers flocking to the new node (AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Apple, etc).

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang is in Taiwan once again, meeting with TSMC founder Morris Chang, as well as Quanta and MediaTek executives for dinner ahead of Computex 2024 next week.

The NVIDIA and TSMC founders enjoyed their dinner, leaving the restaurant and talking to the media, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang responding to fans' requests for autographs, with media outlet CNA reporting he showed his "usual friendly attitude".

Jensen hanging out with TSMC founder Morris Chang is a big deal, but we know the relationship between NVIDIA and TSMC is strong. NVIDIA has its current-gen GeForce RTX 40 series, its upcoming Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 50 series cards made at TSMC, and its entire fleet of H100, H200, B100, B200 AI GPUs (and everything in between) fabbed at TSMC.

NVIDIA is planning its second R&D center in Taiwan, with new reports suggesting that Team Green is looking at the southern city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

The new R&D center will be partly financed by the Taiwanese government and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and its "Big+ Project" subsidies. In a new report from Ctee, we're learning that with AI leading the charge, the Ministry of Economic Affairs' "Leading Enterprise R&D Deepening Plan" (aka Big+) will encourage overseas tech companies to set up forward-looking R&D centers in Taiwan.

NVIDIA was first with the Big+ funding, setting up the first AI innovation R&D center in Neihu, Taipei, then completing its supercomputer (HPC) at the NVIDIA building in Kaohsiung Software Park towards the end of 2023, with the company providing part of the computing power for new applications and the development of AI-powered products and services.

AMD will be spending over 5 billion yuan ($155 million USD or so) on a second R&D center in Taiwan, with both Tainan and Kaohsiung "actively seeking" AMD's favor to settle down.

In a new report from news outlet UDN, AMD CEO Lisa Su will visit Tainan next week, as well as visiting Nanke and Sharon to look for suitable places for its new R&D center. It's not just AMD that is eyeing off another R&D center in Taiwan, with GPU competitor NVIDIA also building a new R&D center in the country.

Both companies have applied to the Ministry of Economic Affairs' and its "Big+ Project" subsidy, with local governments rubbing their hands together with glee that NVIDIA and AMD are opening up new R&D centers in the country, especially in the southern parts of Taiwan.

A Chinese national who worked for SK hynix is currently on trial for allegedly stealing key semiconductor technology from the South Korean memory giant, giving it to Chinese company Huawei.

In the report, The Korea Times reports that the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police that a woman in her 30s, a Chinese national, was sent to prosecutors last month on the suspicion of violating the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology.

The Chinese national who worked for SK hynix was hired all the way back in 2013, working in the department that handled analyzing defects in semiconductor designs. From 2020 to 2022, she was involved with consultations with business-to-business clients in CHina, according to the police agency.