Chipzilla returning to greatness with 18A node
Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft sniff around Intel’s foundry comeback
Troubled Chipzilla might finally be catching a break. After years of being flattened by TSMC’s relentless march and its own comically late roadmap slips, Intel’s foundry arm may have stumbled onto its redemption arc with the 18A process.
Microsoft axes cheaper Surface configs
It’s not a price hike, just a price “clarification”
Software King of the World Microsoft has quietly booted the 256GB versions of last year’s 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 and 13-inch Surface Pro 11 off its store, leaving only pricier 512GB and 1TB options starting at $1,199.
Linux finally kills off the 486
Torvalds flushes ancient x86 silicon down the kernel loo
The Linux kernel is finally putting the 486 processor out of its misery, ending decades of backward compatibility that even Microsoft ditched with Windows XP back in 2001.
Stimulus and stockpiling drive gains, but hangover looms
China’s top foundry, SMIC has seen its quarterly net profit more than double to $188 million, thanks to a mix of Beijing’s largesse and geopolitical panic buying.
Trump scraps Biden’s AI chip export rule
Nvidia happy for now
The Trump administration has torched the Biden-era “AI Diffusion Rule” just days before it was set to take effect on 15 May. The rule, described by a Commerce Department official as “overly complex, bureaucratic, and would stymie American innovation,” carved up the globe into chip access tiers.