AI boom pushes Samsung to $1T

TSMC backs renewables during record demand for energy-hungry chip manufacturing.

Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot up. Recently, the biggest manufacturers of laptops and phones, including Microsoft, Samsung and Dell, started putting up prices and pulling cheaper models – which is going to make finding budget phones and laptops under £400 much harder. Continue reading...

Apple has held “exploratory” talks about manufacturing processors for its devices in the US, Bloomberg reports. The move seems to reflect Apple’s need to secure additional chip supplies to meet growing demand for its products, but could also represent a contingency plan to reduce the company’s reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC’s) advanced manufacturing facilities in Taiwan. I doubt this means Apple doesn’t want to work with TSMC, nor does it mean TSMC is cooling on Apple. I suspect company management is far more concerned about what might happen in the event China attacks TSMC’s home nation.  Contingency planning  That concern seems legitimate in the context of unravelling of international relations and a recently-disclosed warning the CIA gave to tech leaders back in 2023. Executives from Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm were all warned that China might attack Taiwan. Such an attack would comprise a huge threat to the entire tech industry. Speaking at the World Econ

The AI boom is worsening a global memory chip shortage, which Samsung predicts will continue into 2027 Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported record quarterly profit driven by a 49-fold jump in chip income, saying it expects a severe supply shortage to deepen next year as clients spend on AI, driving up prices of its memory chips. A boom in the construction of AI datacentres has spurred Samsung and chipmaking peers to allocate production capacity to advanced chips that Nvidia uses in its so-called AI accelerators. Even so, chipmakers are struggling to meet demand while the move also squeezes the supply of conventional chips. Continue reading...

South Korean AI startup Searchdoc has secured approximately $2.1 million in early-stage funding, combining a seed round with support from the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund’s Innovative Startup Growth Support Program. Founded in March 2025 by engineers from AWS, Naver, and Samsung, the company has developed AI capable of analyzing large-scale industrial documents and technical drawings […]

SK Hynix and Samsung say customers now want long-term contracts to guarantee supplies amid acute shortages

The deal is the latest in a spate of major chip pacts as tech giants race to scale up AI compute.

The AI-driven memory shortage is hitting Samsung's bottom line.