SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI on Tuesday said that the startup was valued at $852 billion in a freshly closed funding round that raised $122 billion.&nbsp;The eye-watering level of funding came in higher than originally projected, reflecting the surging costs of computing power and arriving amid lingering questions about whether OpenAI and other AI companies can generate sufficient revenue to cover expenses.&nbsp;&quot;The capital being deployed today is helping build the infrastructure layer for intelligence itself,&quot; OpenAI said in a blog post.&nbsp;&quot;Over time, that value will flow back into the economy, to companies, to communities, and increasingly to individuals.&quot;&nbsp;The ChatGPT-maker said that its revenue rate of $2 billion monthly is quickly growing.&nbsp;The funding round included a diverse set of partners including Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Softbank, according to OpenAI.&nbsp;In an unusual move, some $3 billion was reportedly raised from individual investors.&nbsp;ChatGPT claims the top position in consumer AI, with more than 900 million weekly active users and some 50 million subscribers.&nbsp;Use of ChatGPT&#39;s online search engine has tripled over the course of a year, according to OpenAI.&nbsp;&quot;These are not just growth milestones -- they show that frontier AI is becoming part of everyday life for people around the world,&quot; the San Francisco-based startup said in the post.&nbsp;The company in February began rolling out advertising for its non-premium users in a bid to bring in more revenue.&nbsp;OpenAI also announced that it is building a &quot;superapp&quot; that will combine ChatGPT, internet browsing, a Codex coding tool, and agentic capabilities that allow digital assistants to independently tend to tasks.&nbsp;The massive funding round comes with anticipation that OpenAI is planning to become a publicly traded company this year as competition intesifies in the AI sector.&nbsp;Arch-rival Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, continues to gain ground and grab headlines for its well-regarded Claude AI models.&nbsp;Anthropic earlier this year secured a $30 billion funding round.&nbsp;Google&#39;s AI model Gemini has emerged as another potent competitor, with Elon Musk&#39;s xAI also attracting investment and users.

Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI raised $122 billion in a funding round valuing it at $852 billion, backed by major partners and individuals, while expanding ChatGPT, building a superapp, growing revenue, and preparing for public listing amid AI competition.

OpenAI raises $122 billion in boosted funding round

SAN JOSE: Nvidia chief Jensen Huang on Monday said he expects the artificial intelligence chip powerhouse to bring in at least a trillion dollars in revenue through next year.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">Huang made the ramped-up revenue forecast while outlining Nvidia&#39;s latest innovations for a packed audience at the opening of its annual developers conference in Silicon Valley.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">&quot;I see, through 2027, at least a trillion dollars (in revenue),&quot; Huang said.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">&quot;I am certain that computing demand will be higher than that.&quot;<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">A year earlier, at the same event, Huang had projected revenue of half that much.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">The revenue is expected to be driven by demand for its premium graphics processing units (GPUs), which Huang touted as delivering high performance while reining in the cost of delivering AI services.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">Huang contended that demand for computing power has increased &quot;a million-fold&quot; in just two years and shows no sign of abating.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">He went on to show Nvidia&#39;s latest innovations when it came to GPU&#39;s and platforms for building AI into nearly everything, from robots and apps to data centers orbiting the planet.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">Nvidia is tailoring its technology for &quot;agentic&quot; AI and training models, as well as inferencing, in which AI makes deductions or generates content, demonstrations showed.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">The entire tech world from big names like OpenAI and Anthropic to young startups, feels like they could grow revenue and their AI &quot;if they could just get more capacity,&quot; Huang told the audience.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">Nvidia is aiming its AI expertise at seemingly all sectors, from automobiles to health care.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">&quot;Every single enterprise company, every single software company in the world needs an AI agent strategy,&quot; Huang said.<p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; line-height: 2; letter-spacing: normal; font-weight: 400; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; scroll-behavior: auto !important;">&quot;This is going to become a multi trillion-dollar industry, offering not just tools for people to use, but agents that are specialized,&quot; he added.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is joined at the stage by a Disney animatronic robot during his keynote address at the company's annual GTC developers conference at the SAP Center in San Jose, California

Jensen Huang says Nvidia expects to generate at least $1 trillion in revenue by 2027, driven by soaring demand for its AI GPUs and expanding AI applications across industries.

Nvidia chief expects revenue of $1 trillion through 2027

TAIPEI: Taiwan&#39;s exports hit a record high in October, driven by surging demand for artificial intelligence technology, government data showed Friday.&nbsp;Taiwan dominates the global manufacturing of semiconductor chips, which power AI.&nbsp;Nvidia and Apple, key customers of Taiwanese chip giant TSMC, are among firms pouring many billions of dollars into chips, servers and data centres.&nbsp;&quot;With business opportunities in artificial intelligence thriving, together with a surge in orders for new consumer electronics, momentum in tech product shipments has become increasingly strong,&quot; the finance minister said in a statement.&nbsp;Total shipments soared 49.7 percent from a year ago to US$61.80 billion, the ministry said.&nbsp;The United States was the biggest destination, accounting for 34.2 percent of exports.&nbsp;Export orders hit a record high of US$70.2 billion in September, the government said previously.&nbsp;Trump has threatened to slap hefty tariffs on microchips, which are the lifeblood of the global economy.

Taiwan’s October exports hit a record US$61.8 billion, up 49.7%, driven by soaring AI demand and chip shipments to the US, its top market. Nvidia and Apple, key customers of Taiwanese chip giant.

 Taiwan's exports hit record on booming chip, AI demand

NEW YORK: AI chip juggernaut Nvidia became the world&#39;s first $5 trillion company on Wednesday, as investors remain confident that artificial intelligence will deliver a new wave of innovation and growth.&nbsp;The California-based tech giant saw its share price rise by 4.91 percent to $210.90 at the open of trading on Wall Street, pushing Nvidia&#39;s market capitalization past the never-before-seen threshold.&nbsp;The surge in the company&#39;s share price follows continued strong sales, a flurry of new deals -- including a partnership with Europe&#39;s Nokia announced on Tuesday -- as well as expectations that the company may soon regain access to China.&nbsp;Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is expected in South Korea this week, where he will attend the sidelines of the APEC summit at which US President Donald Trump will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with issues related to AI development expected to be discussed.&nbsp;Nvidia chips are currently not sold in China due to a combination of Chinese government bans, national security concerns, and ongoing trade tensions between the United States and China.&nbsp;The Trump administration favors a more nuanced approach to selling AI chips to Beijing, but faces deep skepticism from China hawks across the US political spectrum who favor tougher bans on AI technology.&nbsp;Nvidia has announced a series of partnerships in recent weeks, including an intention to invest up to $100 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI over the coming years.&nbsp;It also said it would invest $5 billion in struggling chip rival Intel, in response to the Trump administration&#39;s desire to bring back more manufacturing of semiconductors to the United States.&nbsp;Nvidia produces the advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) that power most generative AI systems, including those behind ChatGPT and other large language models.

Nvidia became the first company worth $5 trillion after its stock jumped nearly 5%. The rise came from strong AI chip sales, new deals, and big investments in OpenAI and Intel.


AI chip giant Nvidia becomes world's first $5 trillion company

HELSINKI: US chip giant Nvidia will take a 2.9 percent stake in Finnish telecoms equipment maker Nokia for $1 billion, Nokia said Tuesday, sending its share price soaring almost 20 percent.&nbsp;The investment is in addition to a strategic partnership between the two companies to develop Nokia&#39;s fifth and sixth generation (5G and 6G) of mobile telephony using Nvidia chips.&nbsp;&quot;Nokia and Nvidia have agreed to collaborate on AI networking solutions and explore opportunities to incorporate Nokia&#39;s data center switching and optical technologies in Nvidia&#39;s future AI infrastructure architecture,&quot; Nokia said in a statement.&nbsp;It said it would issue more than 166 million new shares, for which Nvidia would pay $6.01 per share.&nbsp;Under the partnership, Nokia &quot;intends to increase its presence in the AI and cloud market with data center aligned networking solutions.&quot;&nbsp;The Nokia share was trading up by more than 19 percent after the news, at 7.53 euros.&nbsp;Virtually unknown to the general public just three years ago, Nvidia now boasts the world&#39;s highest revenues, driven by sales of its graphics cards -- or GPUs (graphics processing units) -- the processors that are key to building the technology behind ChatGPT and its rivals.

US chipmaker Nvidia is investing $1 billion for a 2.9% stake in Nokia as part of a new partnership to develop AI-powered 5G and 6G technologies. Nokia shares surged nearly 20% following the announcement.
Nvidia will buy a 2.9% stake in Nokia for $1B, forming a strategic alliance to develop 5G, 6G, and AI networking solutions, boosting Nokia’s AI, cloud, and data center capabilities.


Nvidia’s $1B investment in Nokia fuels AI and 5G/6G expansion

Reuters

REUTERS: Nvidia unveiled on Friday the first US-made Blackwell wafer, produced at TSMC&#39;s semiconductor manufacturing facility in Phoenix, as demand for AI chips accelerates. Companies have been racing to meet the broader AI industry&#39;s voracious appetite for computing power as they develop AI technology that meets or exceeds human intelligence. The move &quot;bolsters the U.S. supply chain and onshores the AI technology stack that will turn data into intelligence and secure America&#39;s leadership for the AI era,&quot; Nvidia said in a blog post. It also aligns with President Donald Trump&#39;s efforts to strengthen U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership. TSMC&#39;s Arizona facility will produce advanced technologies, including two-, three-, and four-nanometer chips, as well as A16 chips, that are essential for applications like AI, telecommunications, and high-performance computing, Nvidia said. There has recently been a flurry of mega deals between AI firms and chipmakers such as Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom to build data center capacity. TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), the world&#39;s biggest producer of advanced chips, raised its full-year revenue forecast on Thursday on a bullish outlook for AI spending after posting a record profit that blew past market estimates.

An NVIDIA logo appears in this illustration taken August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

The company unveiled on Friday the first US-made Blackwell wafer, produced at TSMC's semiconductor manufacturing facility in Phoenix, as demand for AI chips accelerates.

Nvidia unveils first Blackwell chip wafer made with TSMC in US

NEW YORK: A consortium led by asset manager BlackRock, including chip giant Nvidia and Microsoft is set to acquire data center specialist Aligned Data Centers from Australian financial services group Macquarie for approximately $40 billion. The deal marks another sign of the tech sector&#39;s insatiable appetite for AI infrastructure, including chips, servers, and data centers that provide the computing storage and processing power required by artificial intelligence. Founded in 2013, Aligned currently operates more than 50 data centers across the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, with a projected capacity exceeding 5 gigawatts. Macquarie initially acquired a stake in the Texas-based company in 2018 through its subsidiary Macquarie Asset Management and subsequently increased its investment in 2020. The acquiring consortium consists of BlackRock, Emirati sovereign tech fund MGX, and the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), a joint venture established by BlackRock in 2024 that includes BlackRock, MGX, Nvidia, and Microsoft. AIP plans to raise $30 billion in direct investments and leverage debt to achieve a total investment capacity of $100 billion. The partners have not disclosed how equity will be distributed among Aligned&#39;s new shareholders following the transaction&#39;s completion, expected in the first half of 2026. &quot;We are entering a new era in which AI will fundamentally reengineer our economies and enable accelerated growth,&quot; said Ahmed Yahia Al Idrissi, CEO of MGX and Vice Chairman of AIP, in a press release. BlackRock CEO and AIP Chairman Larry Fink said the acquisition enabled its clients to participate in the growth of AI.

Business

BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft, and MGX will acquire Aligned Data Centers from Macquarie for $40 billion, expanding AI infrastructure across the Americas. The deal underscores tech giants’ race to secure computing power for artificial intelligence growth

Nvidia-backed consortium makes $40 billion AI data center deal

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced Monday it is teaming up with chip giant Broadcom to design and build its own specialized computer processors for artificial intelligence.&nbsp;The partnership was the latest in a series of recent announcements by OpenAI as it seeks to strengthen its position as the preeminent company of the generative AI revolution that began with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.&nbsp;In the past few weeks, under the leadership of CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI has signed huge investments in data centers and AI chips with US companies Nvidia and AMD, as well as with South Korea&#39;s Samsung and SK Hynix.&nbsp;The partnerships come even as there are no real signs that the AI business is close to breaking even, despite its strong growth.&nbsp;The deals to build out AI&#39;s immense infrastructure needs also threaten further stress on electricity providers, with AI data centers demanding significant power and resources to deliver the computing necessary for the expected usage of the technology.&nbsp;The financial terms of the deal were not part of the announcements and remain unclear for many of the recent deals, drawing some skepticism from observers who worry the AI frenzy may have created a financial bubble, posing a risk to investors.&nbsp;By designing its own chips rather than relying solely on off-the-shelf processors, OpenAI says it can build hardware specifically tailored to how its AI models work, potentially making them faster and more powerful.&nbsp;&quot;Partnering with Broadcom is a critical step in building the infrastructure needed to unlock AI&#39;s potential and deliver real benefits for people and businesses,&quot; said Altman, OpenAI&#39;s co-founder and chief executive.&nbsp;The custom processors will be installed in data centers operated by OpenAI and its partners to keep up with soaring worldwide demand for AI services.&nbsp;OpenAI has grown rapidly to more than 800 million people using its services weekly since its 2022 launch.&nbsp;Broadcom, which will manufacture and help develop the chips, called the collaboration &quot;a pivotal moment&quot; in AI development.

OpenAI is partnering with Broadcom to develop custom AI chips, aiming to boost performance and reduce reliance on standard processors. This move supports growing AI demands despite financial concerns and energy challenges.

OpenAI announces Broadcom partnership to build AI chips

BEIJING: China&#39;s push to develop top-end artificial intelligence microchips is gaining momentum, but analysts say it will struggle to match the technical might of US powerhouse Nvidia within the current decade.&nbsp;Ramping up its chip industry is a way for Beijing to beat restrictions imposed by Washington on exports of the most advanced chips &mdash; used to power AI systems &mdash; to China.&nbsp;The United States cites national security concerns, such as the risk of giving China a military advantage, as the reason for the block, a geopolitical bind that shows no sign of easing.&nbsp;&quot;China wants chips that policy cannot take away,&quot; said Stephen Wu, a former AI software engineer and founder of the Carthage Capital investment fund.&nbsp;However, &quot;full end-to-end parity with Nvidia&#39;s best chips, memory packaging, networking and software is not guaranteed&quot; by 2030 or even beyond, Wu told AFP.&nbsp;Announcements by Chinese companies of computing upgrades and reports of plans to dramatically increase the output of advanced semiconductors have driven up chip-related shares in the country.&nbsp;But to catch up with Nvidia, China needs to make fast progress on high-bandwidth memory and packaging &mdash; &quot;the hardest and most complex parts of the chip,&quot; Wu said.&nbsp;Other challenges include building the right software to harness the chips&#39; power and upgrading manufacturing tools.&nbsp;&quot;These chips are extremely advanced and tiny, so imagine carving a stone sculpture with a hammer instead of a chisel,&quot; Wu said.&nbsp;&#39;Only way&#39; to succeed&nbsp;&quot;The industry consensus is China at least needs five to ten years to catch up,&quot; said George Chen of The Asia Group, a view reflected by Dilin Wu, research strategist at Pepperstone.&nbsp;&quot;The future is bright, but not yet,&quot; she told AFP.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s maybe a 2030 story&quot; as &quot;significant gaps remain in terms of performance, and also in terms of energy efficiency and ecosystem maturity.&quot;&nbsp;Public demand for AI services is booming in China, and while government support for new chips is &quot;substantial,&quot; the investment required is &quot;immense,&quot; she added.&nbsp;Shares in Alibaba, the e-commerce titan ploughing billions of dollars into AI tech, have more than doubled since January.&nbsp;And Chinese chip industry leader Huawei will reportedly double the output of its top Ascend 910C chip in the next year.&nbsp;The hype has also sharply driven up stocks in the smaller chipmaker Cambricon, sometimes dubbed &quot;China&#39;s Nvidia.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;I think this rally can be sustained,&quot; partly because it is driven by Chinese government policy, Pepperstone&#39;s Wu said.&nbsp;Even Xiaomi, whose 2014 venture into chip design was a confessed flop, is turning back to semiconductors.&nbsp;&quot;Chips are the only way for Xiaomi to succeed,&quot; the company&#39;s CEO Lei Jun said in Beijing last month, referring to the production of high-end smartphone chips.&nbsp;&#39;Best in China&#39;China, the world&#39;s biggest consumer of semiconductors, is a huge market for California-based Nvidia.&nbsp;Nvidia chips are still &quot;the best ... to train large language models,&quot; the systems behind generative AI, said Chen Cheng, general manager for AI translation software at tech firm iFLYTEK.&nbsp;Faced with US restrictions, &quot;we overcame that difficulty&quot; by shifting to Chinese-made tech, she said in a group interview.&nbsp;&quot;Now our model is trained on Huawei chips&quot; -- currently the best in China, Cheng said.&nbsp;Meanwhile, Nvidia, the world&#39;s largest company by market capitalization, is under pressure from both sides.&nbsp;The Financial Times reported last month that Beijing had barred major Chinese firms from purchasing a state-of-the-art Nvidia processor, which was explicitly designed for the country.&nbsp;The company must now pay the US government 15 percent of its revenue from certain AI chip sales in China.&nbsp;Nvidia boss Jensen Huang has warned that restrictions on exporting his most cutting-edge semiconductors to China will only fuel the country&#39;s rise.&nbsp;&quot;They&#39;re nanoseconds behind us,&quot; the leather jacket-clad Huang said on a tech business podcast.&nbsp;&quot;So, we&#39;ve got to go compete.&quot;

Gadgets

The United States cites national security concerns, such as the risk of giving China a military advantage, as the reason for the block, a geopolitical bind that shows no sign of easing.

China's chip challenge: The race to match US tech

<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TOKYO: US technology company Nvidia and Fujitsu, a Japanese telecommunications and computer maker, agreed Friday to work together on artificial intelligence to deliver smart robots and a variety of other innovations using Nvidia&#39;s computer chips. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;The AI industrial revolution has already begun. Building the infrastructure to power it is essential in Japan and around the world,&rdquo; Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said, hugging his Fujitsu counterpart Takahito Tokita on stage. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;Japan can lead the world in AI and robotics,&rdquo; Huang told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The companies will work together on building what they called &ldquo;an AI infrastructure,&rdquo; or the system on which the various futuristic AI uses will be based, including health care, manufacturing, the environment, next-generation computing and customer services. The hope is to establish AI infrastructure for Japan by 2030. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It initially will be tailored for the Japanese market, leveraging Fujitsu&rsquo;s decades-long experience here, but may later expand globally, and will utilize Nvidia&rsquo;s GPUs, or graphics processing units, which are essential for AI, according to both sides. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The two executives did not outline specific projects or give a monetary figure for planned investments. But exploring a collaboration in AI for robots with Yaskawa Electric Corp., a Japanese machinery and robot maker, was noted as a possible example. AI will be constantly evolving and learning, they said.<span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fujitsu and Nvidia have been working together on AI, speeding up manufacturing with digital twins and robotics to tackle aging Japan&rsquo;s labor shortages. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tokita said the companies were taking a &ldquo;humancentric&rdquo; approach aimed at keeping Japan competitive. <span style="font-size: 18px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">&ldquo;Through our collaboration with Nvidia, we aim to create new, unprecedented technologies and contribute to solving even more serious social issues,&rdquo; said Tokita.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, left, and Fujitsu Chief Executive Takahito Tokita shake hands during an announcement in Tokyo Friday

US technology company Nvidia and Fujitsu, a Japanese telecommunications and computer maker, agreed Friday to work together on artificial intelligence to deliver smart robots and a variety of other innovations using Nvidia's computer chips.

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