Meta Platforms – LlamaCon I.

F8 is resurrected to shoot at OpenAI & Co. Meta Platform’s cancelled F8 developer conference has been resurrected as LlamaCon where Meta spent most of its time shooting at OpenAI, and setting out its case as to why it should be the platform for the AI era. Meta kicked off its event by disclosing that Llama has been downloaded 1.2bn...

Alibaba AI – The Edge Game

Inference at the edge moves forward. Alibaba has added to the ever-increasing deluge of AI models with the release of Qwen3 which it claims is better, faster and more efficient than anything that DeepSeek has produced, adding weight to my view that DeepSeek may have been unique only because it was first. It also advances the case for running models...

Huawei vs. Nvidia – Huawei Ascending?

Chinese models will be more expensive It looks like Huawei will produce 2 versions of its data centre chip this year, but this sudden acceleration of product cadence will not fix the big problem that Chinese chips have with economics. The latest version of Huawei’s chip (Ascend 910C) is set to hit general availability in China in May 2025, but...

Google and Intel – Two Stories

Google Q1 25 – Search remains untouchable Google reported good results as Search continues to contemptuously brush off the generative AI threat, giving it time to ensure that it is Gemini that Google Search users eventually switch to as opposed to OpenAI, Perplexity, Meta or any of the others. Q1 25 Revenues ex-TAC / EPS were $76.5bn / $2.81 nicely...

Artificial Intelligence – Argument to Authority

A deeply misleading industry practice. Open AI’s latest model has been demonstrated falling short once again, highlighting that the practice of dressing up product launch press releases as scientific papers is deeply misleading and leads the public to think that these models are far more capable than they actually are. In the Artificial Intelligence industry, the days of normal press...

Google Glass 2 – Buying TED

More about Gemini than Metaverse. Google clearly paid the organisers of TED Talks to demo its developments for the Metaverse, but to be fair to Google, it showed good progress in improving the proposition of the Metaverse and head-mounted displays. Google bought its way into a TED Talks session and used its time to demonstrate its AR and VR hardware...

TSMC Q1 25– No Wobbles

AI freight train is still rolling.  The threat of tariffs, trade war, China restrictions and stock market volatility have been unable to dent TSMC, which reported good results and underlined that AI will continue to drive its revenues in 2025. Q1 25 revenues / EPS were NT839bn / NT13.94, broadly in line with estimates of NT837bn / NT13.62. TSMC confirmed...

Tech Newsround – ASML, AMD & Global Foundries

ASML Q1 25: The tariff effect. ASML reported reasonable Q1 25 results, but its order book was way adrift of expectations, which I take as a sign of weakness in China and uncertainty around tariffs as opposed to a sign that the AI freight train is slowing down. Q1 25 revenues / EPS were E7.7bn / E6.00 broadly in line...

China vs. USA – Art of the Deal?

The screw is given another turn. While it is not very difficult to make an argument for banning the sales of advanced chips into China, giving Nvidia no warning and costing it $5.5bn appears to be a bit of own goal in the short term, but in the long-term, this is likely to hurt China’s competitiveness overseas. The US Department...

Tech Newsround – Nvidia and Apple

Nvidia – Window dressing Nvidia is signing up to make products in the USA which is a move I suspect that it was already executing but it will have done itself no harm by being seen to fall in with the patriotic agenda. Following a catch-up with the President of the United States, Nvidia has said that it will produce...