In order for NVIDIA's continued AI GPU dominance it needs advanced packaging -- TSMC is the king of the semiconductor industry, and has the world's bleeding-edge advanced packaging technology -- but NVIDIA needs more, much more.

NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI GPUs have multiple chips glued together using a complex chip on wafer on substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology that TSMC makes, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang making some new remarks on needing more CoWoS advanced packaging capacity.

Huang said on the sidelines of an event by chip supplier Siliconware Precision Industries in Taiwan's central Taichung city: "As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we're still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L. So it's not about reducing capacity. It's actually increasing capacity into CoWoS-L".

AMD's next-generation Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series "Shimada Peak" CPUs have turned up in new shipping manifests, teasing 96-core, 64-core, 32-core, and 16-core variants.

In new shipping manifests, we're learning that AMD will have a plethora of core configurations of its new Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series "Shimada Peak" CPUs. We're talking about a flagship 96-core, 192-thread SKU, followed by 64C/128T, 32C/64T, and finally, a 16C/32T variant.

Previous leaks teased that we'd see the new Zen 5-based Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series CPUs would debut with the monster 96-core, 192-thread variant alongside the 16-core, 32-thread variant. But now, it seems we'll be graced by the 64-core, 128-thread, and 32-core, 64-thread variant at the same time. It'll be a thread party!

NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin GPU architecture will enter "trial production" in 2H 2025 according to the latest rumors, with SK hynix working on getting its next-gen HBM4 memory ready earlier than expected.

The company promised a 1-year cadence on new AI GPU architecture releases, but it seems NVIDIA is even more keen on getting new AI GPU architectures into the wild even quicker. In a new report from ZDNet Korea, we're learning that SK hynix is shipping out HBM4 AI memory samples in June at the latest, with mass production of its new HBM4 expected to begin in Q3 2025, around 3 months earlier than SK hynix had planned.

NVIDIA requested SK hynix bring its HBM4 AI memory to market ahead of schedule, and this is ahead of the expedited release of HBM4 by NVIDIA. ZDNet Korea reports that the tape-out of HBM4 to NVIDIA had taken place in Q4 2024, which means SK hynix has already completed verification stages with big partners.

In a new turn of events for Intel, after CES 2025 is done and dusted, a new rumor of a company eyeing Intel off is back in the headlines.

Charlie Demerjian from SemiAccurate is reporting that they've read an internal email about a company "that was looking to buy Intel outright, not parts". However, the interested party is NOT one of the companies that we've been hearing about, with Charlie adding that "we have not seen any rumor of this company's interest in public statements"

Charlie explained in his post: "This email went to a very tight circle at the company according to our source which leads us to believe that it was quite real. When a company wants to use the press, public opinion, or investors as a denial of service weapon, they go public and go public loudly. When a company wants to actually buy something, they do whatever they can to avoid leaks to keep the price down. The way this email was circulated, or not circulated, made us lean toward it being real. That said it was far from confirmation".

NVIDIA's RTX 5090 has been spotted in some benchmarks that give us an idea of its performance outside of DLSS 4 (and Multi Frame Generation) boosts.

The catch is that these aren't gaming benchmarks with DLSS 4 turned off, but rather, Geekbench Vulkan and OpenCL runs.

So no, these are far from ideal as a way of gauging the Blackwell flagship's performance, but, assuming the scores are accurate, they do give us a flavor of the raw generational uplift we're looking at here compared to the RTX 4090.

Nintendo just officially unveiled the Nintendo Switch 2, and what was seen by many but likely not observed was a new feature of what appears to be a new Mario Kart game.

The Nintendo Switch 2 reveal trailer finally arrived, and while many of the features of the new console, such as size and overall physical design, weren't surprising to anyone who has been keeping up with the tsunami of leaks, there were a few unexpected details. One of which was the sight of what appears to be a brand new Mario Kart game, which makes sense considering Mario Kart 8 is now more than 10 years old, and given the title is one of Nintendo's best-selling games, it makes sense to debut a new iteration with the next-generation console.

Nintendo didn't reveal any specifics about the new console, such as specifications, performance, confirmed titles, etc. But what fans managed to spot in the few seconds of Mario Kart footage that was displayed during the trailer was an updated Donkey Kong design, giving more credence to the notion this is a new Mario Kart game and support for 24 players. Support for 24 players comes from a quick screen grab of the trailer where it shows a starting line with 24 spots available. If true, this would easily be the most players in a single Mario Kart game out of the entire franchise.

SpaceX has just wrapped up its 7th test flight of the world's largest and most powerful rocket, Starship, with the company once again proving its ingenuity in being able to launch and catch the 200-foot-tall booster called Super Heavy.

The launch took place from Starbase, located in Boca Chica, Texas, and marked the first Starship flight of 2025. As always, SpaceX set very ambitious goals for Flight 7 and explained in a recent blog post on its website that it planned to repeat the success of its previous flight, where it caught Super Heavy on the Mechazilla launch tower. SpaceX achieved that, but, unfortunately, there was a slight hiccup as Starship, or Ship, had communications severed approximately eight and a half minutes after flight was engaged.

Despite the wireless data transmission severance, Starship still managed to light all six Raptor engines successfully and stayed within its designated launch corridor. SpaceX explained in an update on its website that initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, which resulted in SpaceX engaging in a process called "rapid unscheduled disassembly," or boom.

It was in April last year, the Senate passed a bill that deemed TikTok a threat to national security as its data scraping methods were found to be predatory and a risk to the American people.

The Senate gave ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, an ultimatum: either sell the popular app to a US government-approved entity and remain in the country or face a sweeping ban across both Android and iOS app marketplaces. ByteDance was given 270 to decide what it wants to do, and now, as we are approaching the deadline of January 19, the Biden administration has somewhat backpedaled on its decision, with a White House official speaking to ABC News and saying, "Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate under American ownership."

Adding, "Given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration, it will be up to the next administration to implement." Notably, during Trump's first presidency, the former and now soon-to-be president called for the ban of TikTok, but recently, Trump has changed his tune, saying he will try and keep TikTok available in the US. However, neither Trump nor his administration has outlined a plan for exactly how that will happen.

If you've been following our coverage of CES 2025, you'll notice that AI has been the key buzzword from this year's conference.

In fact, it's been the buzzword of the last 5 years. However, amidst the fog of false corporate claims and gimmicks - two experts from Princeton University have been cutting through the falsehoods and misconceptions about the technology.

Prof. Arvind Narayanan and former Facebook engineer Sayash Kapoor appeared in a recent conversation that explored the concept of 'AI Snake Oil', and the ways that companies are using these tools to deceptively market products. One of the cited examples was how hiring tools, which claim to predict a candidate's job performance, lack any credible foundation. "Companies are selling products that literally cannot work," Kapoor emphasizes.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is planning on increasing production of its 2nm chips throughout 2024 in preparation for its cutting-edge 1.6nm chips to hit "volume production" in 2026.

TSMC, the world's best semiconductor company, is preparing to secure more chip manufacturing contracts as throughout 2025, expenditure is expected to increase to between $38 and $42 billion. TSMC recently reported its Q4 earnings, and according to the document, revenue increased by up to 37% year-on-year to $26.88 billion, but it anticipates a slight drop of 5.5% due to "smartphone seasonality."

Despite the current hurdle, TSMC doesn't seem to at all, as vice chairman and CEO C.C. Wei spoke on an analyst conference call and said TSMC expects 2025 to be another year of substantial growth for the company, with internal forecasting of its revenue pointing to an approximate 20% increase.