Nintendo sues the US government over tariffs — Japanese videogame giant seeks 200 billion refund with interest By Luke James published 7 March 26 The lawsuit targets duties that forced Switch 2 accessory price hikes and delayed preorders last year.
Iranian drone strikes hit three AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain — Iran confirms it targeted Amazon cloud infrastructure By Luke James published 7 March 26 Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated it targeted the Bahrain facility specifically because AWS hosts U.S. military workloads there.
Apple pulls $4,000 512GB Mac Studio upgrade option as AI RAM squeeze continues, raises 256GB upgrade price — M3 256GB upgrade now costs $2,000 By Luke James published 6 March 26 The 512GB option, which was exclusive to the M3 Ultra chip and previously cost $4,000, no longer appears on Apple's configuration page.
As Frank Yeary retires from Intel, the company picks an engineer to chair its board — Intel Foundry governance issues to be resolved, and looking back at the Yeary years By Luke James published 5 March 26 Premium Intel’s board of directors is getting a new independent chair, effective May 13, following the company’s Annual Stockholders’ Meeting.
China's top chip execs claim ASML alternative 'small, fragmented, and weak' — Chinese industry titans call for national effort to invest in advanced chipmaking tools By Luke James published 5 March 26 China's most senior semiconductor executives issued a public call this week for a consolidated national effort to build a domestic alternative to Dutch lithography giant ASML.
Spiralling memory spot prices could trigger 'industry cycle collapse,' report warns — NAND wafer costs surge 25% in a single month By Luke James published 5 March 26 DDR5 16G (2Gx8) chips averaged $39, up 7.4% month-over-month, while 1Tb TLC flash wafers jumped 25% to $25.
OpenAI building GitHub alternative after frequent platform outages and disruptions — a public OpenAI code repository would directly compete with one of its biggest investors By Luke James published 5 March 26 OpenAI is building its own code repository, prompted by a rise in GitHub outages and disruptions that left its engineers unable to work for hours at a time.
Trump administration weighs forcing China's Tencent to sell its stakes in Epic Games, Riot Games, and Supercell — meetings held over security risk ahead of China summit with Xi Jinping By Luke James published 4 March 26 The Trump administration is actively debating whether to allow Chinese tech giant Tencent to keep its ownership stakes in several major gaming companies, including Fortnite creator Epic Games.
AI memory crunch forces DRAM market into 'hourly pricing' model, report claims — small and medium-sized businesses fighting for survival By Luke James published 3 March 26 According to DigiTimes, these companies began struggling to absorb soaring memory costs in the second half of 2025.
2026 will bring sharpest PC declines in over a decade — PC shipments to fall 10.4% By Luke James published 3 March 26 Premium The forecast puts 2026 on track for the steepest device shipment contraction in over a decade, according to Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner.
Entry-level PC market to ‘disappear’ by 2028 — rising memory prices pile more strain on consumer PC market By Luke James published 2 March 26 A 130% surge in combined DRAM and SSD prices by the end of 2026 will push PC prices up 17% compared to 2025 levels and wipe out the sub-$500 PC market.
California introduces age verification law for all operating systems, including Linux and SteamOS — user age verified during OS account setup By Luke James published 1 March 26 The law's broad definition of an "operating system provider" pulls in not just Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, but Linux distributions and Valve's SteamOS.
OpenAI strikes deal with Pentagon following Claude blacklisting — Anthropic to challenge supply chain risk designation in court By Luke James published 28 February 26 Altman’s announcement came not long after President Trump “ordered” every federal agency to immediately stop using Anthropic's technology.
OpenAI raises $110 billion in largest-ever private tech funding round, Nvidia throws in $30 billion — AI startup now valued at $730 billion By Luke James published 28 February 26 $50 billion from Amazon, $30 billion from Nvidia, and $30 billion from SoftBank, with additional investors expected to join as the round progresses.
Trump bans Anthropic AI from federal agencies after firm refuses to unlock capabilities — Anthropic cites risks of autonomous military applications, mass domestic surveillance By Luke James published 27 February 26 "We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again," said Trump.
Amazon invests $50 billion in OpenAI, comitting to 2 gigawatts of Trainium silicon — AWS to become exclusive cloud distributor for Frontier enterprise platform By Luke James published 27 February 26 Premium The investment is part of a $110 billion funding round that values OpenAI at $730 billion pre-money, with Nvidia and SoftBank each contributing $30 billion.
ISSCC 2026: AMD discloses how the Instinct MI355X doubled per-CU throughput despite lower compute unit count — 'We are actually matching the performance of the more expensive and complex GB200' By Luke James published 27 February 26 Premium Taking to the stage at ISSCC, AMD’s Ramasamy Adaikkalavan talked through how AMD managed to fit nearly double the compute throughput into the same die area as its predecessor,
Rapidus secures $1.7 billion from Japan’s government and private investors for 2nm chip production — company says it is in active discussions with more than 60 potential customers By Luke James published 27 February 26 Under the arrangement, the government will initially hold roughly 10% of Rapidus's voting shares and the majority of its stake in non-voting stock.
HP says memory costs doubled in one quarter, now account for 35% of PC build materials By Luke James published 26 February 26 Interim CEO Bruce Broussard told investors the company has responded by securing long-term supply agreements for the year and has "qualified new suppliers".
Microsoft clarifies Windows 11 printer driver policy — support for legacy printers is not ending By Luke James published 25 February 26 Microsoft confirmed today that Windows 11 is not ending support for legacy V3 and V4 printer drivers despite previous reports
Trump administration to use Pentagon AI to set mineral reference prices — gallium and germanium among first four targets By Luke James published 25 February 26 The AI pricing tool purports to cut Chinese manipulation out of critical minerals markets.
The world’s first transatlantic fiber-optic cable is being ripped up after 37 years on the sea floor — TAT-8 to be removed after entering service in 1988, broke in 2002 By Luke James published 25 February 26 Subsea Environmental Services is currently hauling TAT-8 off the seabed near Portugal, more than two decades after it was decommissioned.
Apple to produce Mac Minis in Houston for the first time — US chip sourcing tops 20 billion units By Luke James published 24 February 26 Apple announced that it will begin producing the Mac Mini in Houston, Texas later this year, marking the first time that the compact desktop has ever been manufactured in the United States.
OpenAI couldn’t finance its data centers, so it took control of the hardware instead — company's chip design aspirations lag behind Google and Amazon By Luke James published 24 February 26 Premium OpenAI spent much of 2025 trying to build its own AI data centers, only to find that it couldn’t secure financing on competitive terms.
German data center giant hikes prices up to 37% starting April 1 — Hetzner cites rising hardware costs for price increases By Luke James published 23 February 26 German data center operator Hetzner announced today that it’s raising prices across its cloud, dedicated server, storage, and load balancer products starting April 1.
