Trump Imposes 25% Tariff on Advanced AI Chips to Boost U.S. Semiconductor Production U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on specific high-performance AI chips, including Nvidia’s H200 processor and AMD’s MI325X semiconductor. The move, announced on Wednesday under a new national security order, forms part of a wider strategy to strengthen domestic semiconductor production and reduce dependence on overseas suppliers, particularly in Taiwan. The decision follows a nine-month investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. It targets a defined group of advanced semiconductors that meet strict performance standards, as well as devices containing…
Author: Aishwarya Parikh
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Scientists Unlock New Insights into Healthy Ageing Through Stem Cell Research A new study from the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, offers fresh insight into how tissues age and lose their regenerative ability. The findings suggest that ageing may begin not within the stem cells themselves, but in the surrounding “neighbourhood” of support cells that nurture and maintain them. This discovery opens up new possibilities for understanding and promoting healthy ageing. Support Cells: The Hidden Key to Regeneration Researchers from ARI, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), investigated the ovaries of the fruit fly Drosophila…
U.S. Drops Plan to Restrict Chinese Drones Imports Amid Security Debate The U.S. Commerce Department has withdrawn a proposal that would have imposed new restrictions on Chinese-made drones, citing national security concerns. The decision marks a pause in Washington’s broader campaign to tighten controls on technology imports from China. Commerce Pulls Back After White House Review The Commerce Department initially announced in September that it intended to issue rules limiting or potentially banning Chinese drone imports due to risks linked to information and communication technology supply chains. The proposal was sent to the White House for review on 8 October…
Arc Sport EV Boat Brings Silent Power to the Water Carving effortlessly across Lake Mead, just 30 minutes from Las Vegas, the Arc Sport EV boat offers a clean, quiet vision of the future of water sports. Developed by California-based startup Arc, the all-electric wake sport vessel embodies a bold commitment to eliminating noise, fumes, and emissions from boating. Electrifying the Water “We are on a mission to electrify everything on the water,” said Arc co-founder and CEO Mitch Lee. His team, composed largely of former Tesla and Rivian engineers, has designed the 23-foot Arc Sport EV to combine Silicon…
GameStop Ties CEO Ryan Cohen’s Pay to Ambitious $100 Billion Market Value Goal GameStop has announced a new compensation plan for its Chief Executive Officer, Ryan Cohen, that links his potential earnings entirely to the company’s future performance. The package challenges Cohen to lift the struggling videogame retailer’s market value from about $9.26 billion to more than $100 billion, while also significantly improving profitability. A High-Stakes, Performance-Based Package Under the plan revealed on Wednesday, Cohen will not receive any fixed pay. This means no base salary, cash bonuses, or guaranteed stock awards. Instead, his entire compensation depends on meeting specific…
Samsung Set to Report 160% Profit Surge as AI Boom Drives Chip Price Rally Samsung Electronics is expected to announce a 160 per cent jump in its fourth-quarter operating profit, fuelled by a global chip shortage and soaring demand for artificial intelligence hardware. Analysts say the rebound marks one of the strongest quarters for the world’s largest memory chip maker since 2018, reflecting how the AI boom has transformed the semiconductor market. Chip Shortage Pushes Profits to Multi-Year High According to LSEG SmartEstimate data compiled from 31 analysts, Samsung’s October–December operating profit is projected at 16.9 trillion won (11.7 billion…
Trump Blocks HieFo’s $3 Million Purchase of Emcore Assets over National Security Concerns U.S. President Donald Trump has prohibited photonics company HieFo Corp’s $3 million acquisition of assets from New Jersey-based aerospace and defence firm Emcore, citing national security concerns linked to China. White House Order Cites Security Threat In an executive order issued by the White House on Friday, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s chip and wafer-fabrication businesses could “impair the national security of the United States.” The president directed HieFo to divest…
Taiwan Files New Indictments Against Tokyo Electron Unit over TSMC Trade Secret Theft Taiwanese prosecutors have filed additional indictments against the Taiwan branch of Japanese chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron and three other defendants in a case involving the alleged theft of trade secrets from leading chipmaker TSMC. Expanded Charges Follow Earlier Indictment The latest development builds on charges filed last month, when prosecutors accused Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan subsidiary of breaching the National Security Act and the Trade Secrets Act. The investigation stems from allegations that a former employee unlawfully obtained confidential information from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip…
Trump Administration Lifts Sanctions on Three Intellexa Executives The administration of President Donald Trump has lifted sanctions on three executives linked to the spyware consortium Intellexa, according to a notice published on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website. The decision marks a partial reversal of measures introduced last year under President Joe Biden, which targeted seven individuals associated with the group. Reversal of Previous Sanctions The Treasury Department had previously described Intellexa, founded by former Israeli intelligence officer Tal Dilian, as “a complex international web of decentralised companies that built and commercialised a comprehensive suite of highly invasive spyware products.” The…
Theranos Whistleblower Reporter Sues Major AI Firms Over Copyright Infringement Investigative journalist John Carreyrou, best known for uncovering the Theranos scandal, has filed a lawsuit against several leading artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of using copyrighted books without permission to train their AI systems. Filed on Monday in a California federal court, the case names Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta Platforms, and Perplexity as defendants. Carreyrou, a New York Times reporter and author of Bad Blood, brought the case alongside five other writers, alleging that the firms illegally copied and fed their works into large language models (LLMs)…