Always Be Curious #227: NVIDIA's earnings, 6th gen DRAM chips, and Anandtech shuts down
This week in ABC: Nvidia revenue jumps 122% in positive sign for tech’s AI boom, SK hynix pumps out its latest DRAM, and tech news site Anandtech shuts down
In the week that NVIDIA reported another stellar round of earnings, the AI boom continues unabated, an AI jelly (!) learns to play Pong, nuclear fusion draws near(er) in China, and a Korean chipmaker pumps out its crazy next-gen DRAM chips, well … I also had to shed a tear for one of my go-to websites. 😢 After 27 years, Anandtech shut down. Founded in 1997 by 14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, the site earned a reputation for its in-depth hardware reviews and technical analysis. In a final post on the site, current AnandTech Editor-in-Chief Ryan Smith cited changing market dynamics for written tech journalism as the primary reason for closure. The site's 21,500 articles will remain accessible indefinitely. These include 41 pieces about ASML (and the bumpy rise of EUV), in part thanks to yours truly from my time in ASML’s media team. 👍
This is then also your reminder to support journalism around the world. Remember: amazing journalism stems from creative writing talent and curious minds. I support publications like The New York Times, NRC, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The Economist. Their best sci-tech stuff will always be part of Always Be Curious. 👏
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Have a good week, stay safe and sound,
👨💻The round-up in sci-tech💡
🇨🇳 Inside China’s race to lead the world in nuclear fusion (Nature)
The country has ambitious plans for fusion power plants to provide clean, limitless energy. Can they be realized?
🔮 The next 125 years (MIT Technology Review)
Happy birthday to MIT:TR! To celebrate the anniversary, they look ahead to the innovations that will shape business, culture, and the environment in the next century—and beyond.
🤔 Stephen Wolfram thinks we need philosophers working on big questions around AI (TechCrunch)
As AI developers and others start to think more deeply about how computers and people intersect, Stephan Wolfram says it is becoming a much more of a philosophical exercise
🧠 Brain scientists finally discover the glue that makes memories stick for a lifetime (Scientific American)
A long-running research endeavor reveals key chemical players that cement memories in place—and still more have yet to be discovered
🔥 AI made of jelly ‘learns’ to play Pong — and improves with practice (Nature)
Inspired by neurons in a dish playing the classic video game, researchers show that synthetic hydrogels have a basic ‘memory’.
📞 Why Gen Z & Millennials are hung up on answering the phone (BBC)
A recent survey found a quarter of people aged 18 to 34 never answer the phone.
💬 Seeking Mavis Beacon: the search for an elusive Black tech hero (The Guardian)
New documentary looks for a woman who was synonymous with typing in the 80s and 90s, with surprising results
🤓This week in chips⚠
💪 Nvidia revenue jumps 122% in positive sign for tech’s A.I. boom (The New York Times)
Expectations for the chipmaker have been through the roof because of its dominance in a key component for artificial intelligence systems.
☝️ This data center AI chip roadmap shows NVIDIA will dominate far into 2027 and beyond (Tweaktown)
This data center AI chip roadmap shows that NVIDIA dominates the AI GPU business: right up to the Rubin Ultra AI GPU with 576GB of HBM4 memory in 2027.
😎 Cerebras launches the world’s fastest AI inference (Cerebras)
20X performance and 1/5th the price of GPUs- available today. Developers can now leverage the power of wafer-scale compute for AI inference via a simple API.
🇰🇷 SK hynix develops world's first 6th-gen DRAM chip (Korea Times)
SK hynix, the world's second-largest memory chip maker, said Thursday it has developed the world's first 16 gigabyte DDR5 chip using the sixth generation of the 10 nanometer chipmaking technology.
🇺🇸📉 Intel’s troubles complicate U.S. chip independence (IEEE Spectrum)
Will more funding be needed to keep Intel competitive?
🇹🇼💰 TSMC 3/5nm nodes poised to generate over NT$1 trillion in revenue by 3Q24 (Digitimes)
TSMC is likely to see its 3nm and 5nm nodes generate more than NT$1 trillion (US$31.02 billion) in total revenue in the first three quarters of this year, as the foundry house's sales momentum remains strong in the third quarter of 2024.
🤯 TSMC's EUVs to consume 3 nuclear reactors' worth of power (CW)
EUV technology put TSMC ahead of Intel and at the head of the advanced manufacturing node. It's also spiked energy demand in Taiwan. In the next five years, even a brand-new nuclear power plant won't be enough to satiate TSMC's growing appetite for power. What can the semiconductor giant do to consume less energy?
🥶 Lam Research’s cryogenic etching – scaling 3D NAND for AI (Counterpoint Research)
Lam Research's Harmeet Singh sheds light on how the industry is pushing the envelope of memory density and performance.
🤝🇺🇸 Intel and IBM deliver enterprise AI in the cloud (Intel)
Intel and IBM to deploy Gaudi 3 AI accelerators on IBM Cloud to help enterprises scale AI.
📈By the numbers📉
📊 NVIDIA announces financial results for Q2 fiscal 2025 (NVIDIA)
“Hopper demand remains strong, and the anticipation for Blackwell is incredible,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “NVIDIA achieved record revenues as global data centers are in full throttle to modernize the entire computing stack with accelerated computing and generative AI. “Blackwell samples are shipping to our partners and customers. Spectrum-X Ethernet for AI and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software are two new product categories achieving significant scale, demonstrating that NVIDIA is a full-stack and data center-scale platform. Across the entire stack and ecosystem, we are helping frontier model makers to consumer internet services, and now enterprises. Generative AI will revolutionize every industry.”
📱 Worldwide smartphone market forecast to grow nearly 6% in 2024, driven by stronger growth for Android in China and emerging markets (IDC)
Worldwide smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 5.8% year over year in 2024 to 1.23 billion units, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. The 12% growth in the first quarter, followed by 9% growth last quarter, has brought improved optimism about how 2024 will play out in the second half of the year. Affordable Android smartphones continue to grow rapidly in emerging markets coming off a difficult two years while premium markets are starting to embrace GenAI smartphones, generating excitement and renewed interest in the industry.
❤️For the love of tech❤️
Oh dear. AnandTech, the pioneering technology news website and one of my favorite ones, is shutting down after 27 years. 😕 So long, and thanks for all the fish. 🐬
End of the Road: An AnandTech Farewell (Anandtech)
Always Be Curious is the personal newsletter of Sander Hofman, Senior Creative Content Strategist at ASML. Opinions expressed in this curated newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.