AMD's AI geared Acquisition, Huawei's AI Chip Ascend 910C, Sapeon and Rebellions Merge, Re-Exploring OpenAI's Discussions with Broadcom 💥

It's been a surprising busy period this in mid August, 2024 in the Semiconductor and AI chip industry.

Hello Everyone,

This is an issue for the week up to August 22nd, and a lot of interesting Earnings to report. There may be times during the summer or a slow week in news, where I miss a week or two. I’m always watching this stuff, just won’t be publishing as often (July/August).

I’m on break right now in August however there have occurred some things we simply cannot overlook.

This is one of my “new” Newsletters, and over 10+ now covering various aspects of emerging tech. Thanks for the support, I hope to learn along with you about these topics.

Support me doing this for as low as $1 a week. Please see my archives for more on what to expect.

• Welcome to the 14th edition of Semiconductor Things™, where I seek to break down some of the news in the Semiconductor, AI chips and datacenter space globally to make it more accessible and easy to follow.

• With the rise of Generative AI, Nvidia and TSMC and the geopolitical importance of Taiwan, this is now a major topic of me in my watching of the emerging tech space that I do as an analyst, writer, curators and news watcher.

• The Technology category is an underdog relative to Substack’s baseline audience, this means I’m an outlier here. To survive, I’m building 10+ Newsletters in “emerging tech” coverage. A pilot never seen before on Substack for a one-person team. Full disclosure, I may not make it.

• Importe note: I am not native to the Semi space, and it might take a while to get up to speed. So we’ll be effectively learning about these things together.

Analyzing and Curating News 🔔

I’m a news fanatic always analyzing the latest in exponential and emerging tech like robotics, semiconductors & AI chips, quantum, synthetic biology and other fields - as well as BigTech in AI.

When to Expect this Newsletter ⏰

This Newsletter will typically go out on Thursday at 7am Eastern Time (though sorry not today, usually 7 to 9am lately). Posts are partially paywalled and paid subscriptions are cheap.

What? It will attempt to summarize some of the most important news in the semiconductor industry of the last week.

• For rundowns: Semiconductor Things

• For deep dives: Semiconductor Reports (still in Research mode atm).

So what did we miss?

AMD is acquiring ZT Systems for $5 Bn. that will help AMD expand its AI capabilities

AMD has announced its intention to acquire ZT Systems for $4.9 billion in a cash and stock transaction. This strategic move is aimed at significantly expanding AMD's data center AI systems capabilities. The acquisition will combine AMD’s high-performance Instinct AI accelerators, EPYC CPUs, and networking products with ZT Systems' expertise in designing and deploying data center AI compute and storage infrastructure at scale.

• After the deal closes, AMD will sell ZT Systems' U.S.-based data center infrastructure manufacturing and hold onto its system-design business.

• This is super interesting because the move is intended to strengthen AMD’s AI computing capabilities, while hinting at its challenge to NVIDIA’s dominance in the AI market.

• AMD CEO Lisa Su stated in an interview that ZT Systems generates over USD 10 billion in annual revenue, nearly half of AMD’s reported USD 22.7 billion revenue last year.

I think this is a bigger acquisition for the future of the industry than meets the eye.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱

• Global View: SEMI: Global semiconductor sales rose 27% year-on-year in the 2nd quarter “and are further expected to surge 29% in the” 3rd quarter, surpassing record high levels from 2021, led by AI-fueled demand and rebounding electronics sales. Improved demand also led to a 2.6% drop year-on-year in inventory levels in the 1st half of 2024.

• 👁️‍🗨️ Eye on South Korea: SK Telecom plans to establish a “GPU Farm” of thousands of Nvidia H100 GPUs in South Korea with partner Lambda by the end of this year, media report, adding the Seoul-based AI data center will offer a subscription service allowing customers to rent GPUs for AI training and other workloads.

• South Korea’s exports for the first 20-days of August rose 18.5% year-on-year to US$33.1 billion, led by a 42.5% surge in semiconductor exports (US$6.7 billion), media report, adding exports of mobile devices fell 1% to $1.12 billion. Read more.

The other massive story that really caught my attention is from Huawei.

Huawei’s Ascend 910C AI Chip

Huawei is preparing to launch a new AI chip named Ascend 910C, which is designed to compete with Nvidia's high-performance AI chips, particularly the H100. This move comes in response to U.S. sanctions that restrict Nvidia from selling its most advanced chips in China due to national security concerns.

• Potential clients have already begun testing the chip, Ascend 910C.

• TikTok parent ByteDance, Baidu and China Mobile are among those in early discussions to purchase it.

• Huawei told potential clients that its upcoming processor, Ascend 910C, is on par with Nvidia’s H100, targeting shipments as early as October, 2024.

If this is true, it could certainly be a game changer.

🌍 Semiconductor Bits & Bites 📱