Microsoft's Copilot AI chatbot is arguably one of the most controversial add-ons ever implemented in the Windows 11 operating system. However, the controversy doesn't stop at PC operating systems. It seems to extend to TVs as well. According to Reddit user u/defjam16, his LG TV webOS received an update that installed Microsoft's Copilot AI app, with no option to remove it. Although users can choose to ignore it, the push for increased AI integration in everyday products is becoming unavoidable, even on TVs. What exactly can a Copilot AI app do in your TV? We don't know either.

Microsoft is likely promoting its Copilot on TVs to capture more of the AI app market, aiming to become the go-to platform for AI inquiries. Since webOS is a Linux-based TV operating system LG uses, it is also possible that Microsoft is preparing the Copilot AI app for a wider rollout to Linux users, who are now officially commanding a 3% market share among PCs. Other TV operating system platforms are also at "risk" of getting a dedicated Microsoft Copilot AI app, which is especially bad for people not wanting their TV to do any AI processing.

SK Hynix held an internal company meeting, where the company reportedly presented some tough pills to swallow for many gamers. The company now forecasts the tight memory supply to last through 2028 for the commodity DRAM, which includes DDR5/DDR4, GDDR6/GDDR7, and LPDDR5x/LPDDR6. All the aforementioned DRAM variants are essential for PC and console components, making millions of gamers at risk of absorbing a massive price increase as a result. As memory supplier inventories deplete, production capacity will not increase to meet demand as it has in the past. This marks a departure from the usual response by memory manufacturers, who typically ramp up capacity in response to demand.

However, an interesting thing that SK Hynix has noted is that this situation will exclude the company's most advanced memory solutions—HBM and SOCAMM. These products are expected to get an additional capacity expansion, without tight supply impacting this part of the DRAM supply chain. These products are even in high demand as they are mostly consumed in higher volume than the regular commodity DRAM, due to their integration into AI products such as GPUs and servers.

Huawei's next-generation Ascend 950 AI accelerator has been pictured for the first time, showcasing the company's custom silicon and HBM memory. The chip combines Huawei's first self-developed HBM memory with a new generation of AI acceleration. Huawei aims to compete through scale rather than focusing solely on single-chip performance. Although it currently trails NVIDIA in per-chip performance, Huawei's system-scale solutions can still be competitive. The company has announced the Ascend 950 family for early 2026, featuring two variants.

The 950PR model includes 128 GB of in-house HBM with around 1.6 TB/s of bandwidth, while the 950DT model increases memory to 144 GB and boosts bandwidth to nearly 4 TB/s. Both chips target one PetaFLOP of FP8, and two PetaFLOPS of FP4. Huawei's competitive strategy emphasizes dense packaging and aggressive networking, rather than relying solely on raw per-chip performance. We have no information on the node selection, but it will likely be SMIC's newest N+3 node with 5 nm-class features. Chinese SMIC has officially achieved volume production of its newest 5 nm node relying on the deep ultraviolet (DUV) to manufacture its silicon. Since the first customer for N+3 was Huawei with Kirin 9030 SoC, it is only logical that the more important Ascend AI accelerator family is manufactured using the same node.

Intel has conducted early tool qualification tests on wet etch systems from ACM Research as part of its preparations for the next-generation 14A node, which is scheduled for volume production in 2027. These evaluations have drawn external political attention because ACM has significant research and manufacturing facilities in China and has faced U.S. restrictions on its overseas company departments. The situation is further complicated by a past investment in ACM through Walden International, a firm associated with Lip-Bu Tan, who now leads Intel. Intel has not yet announced a decision to adopt ACM's tools for 14A production, nor provided any statement.

The new tool testing has led to political scrutiny and calls for stricter procurement rules for companies that have received government support. Although ACM Research is a U.S. company, its research and operations expansion in China pose a security threat to government-backed Intel, which is striving to maintain American semiconductor independence. At the same time, Intel has already confirmed its use of ASML's High-NA EUV lithography, another tool from the West that is prohibited from being sold to Chinese entities. ASML operates 12 offices across China, primarily for operational purposes, but it is not under the same level of scrutiny. We are awaiting any possible updates to determine if there are additional underlying reasons why Intel and ACM Research are facing challenges in this situation.

Framework has published an official company blog post announcing that it is preparing a 50% price increase for its DDR5 memory upgrade configurations. In an effort to remain transparent with customers, the company has stated that it intends to raise the price of DDR5 memory available in Framework Laptop DIY Edition orders by 50%. This decision is a direct response to the significantly higher costs the company is facing from its DRAM suppliers and distributors. As a result, the company cannot absorb all of these cost increases on its own and needs to pass some of them on to the consumer.

The company will not increase the prices of its existing pre-configured systems that include DRAM, as these were acquired at earlier, standard prices. As the memory market becomes more volatile, this might be just the first wave of price hikes, since the company cannot absorb the added costs of new memory orders. Since Framework manufactures various components, from laptops to mini-PCs, the company uses a mix of DDR5, LPDDR5X, and GDDR. All of these are in tight supply due to the AI boom depleting any remaining DRAM inventory.

Chinese company SMIC has officially achieved volume production of its newest 5 nm-class node called SMIC N+3. This is officially China's most advanced semiconductor node produced without any extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools, relying on the deep ultraviolet (DUV) to manufacture its silicon. In the latest analysis of the Huawei Kirin 9030 SoC, the TechInsights has confirmed that the chip has officially been manufactured using the new advanced node, bringing Chinese semiconductor independence one step closer to reality. This node is a full generation ahead of the older SMIC N+2, which is 7 nm-class node Huawei has been using to manufacture its Ascend series of AI accelerators and other infrastructure parts.

However, this is not without drawbacks. Since SMIC uses DUV to print silicon designs, the company faces significant challenges in realizing its silicon ambitions. For printing smaller nodes, EUV scanners offer more possibilities due to their much smaller wavelength of 13.5 nm, compared to the smallest DUV immersion scanner wavelength of 193 nm. TechInsights has confirmed that SMIC's N+3 node, despite achieving impressive DUV multi-patterning implementation, encounters significant yield challenges, particularly due to the aggressively scaled metal pitch. As a result, the Huawei Kirin 9030 SoC is likely produced at an operating loss, with a significant portion of dies being discarded or used for downgraded chips.

NVIDIA's recent generations of GPUs, such as "Hopper" and "Blackwell," have been known for stalling their high-performance computing (HPC) oriented FP64 double-precision performance. However, the company is not inherently abandoning the HPC space and has confirmed for HPCWire that 64-bit floating point data is not going away. According to Dion Harris, the senior director of HPC and AI hyperscale infrastructure solutions at NVIDIA, the company is "definitely looking to bring some additional [FP64] capabilities in our future gen architectures. We are very serious about making sure that we can deliver the required performance to power those simulation workloads."

The acceleration of 64-bit floating-point data paths is crucial for the HPC community, particularly in the life sciences. When a workload demands sustained high-precision support, NVIDIA's recent generations have not met expectations. For comparison, NVIDIA's current most powerful B300 "Blackwell Ultra" accelerator achieves only 1.2 TeraFLOPS of FP64 performance. In contrast, the older H200 "Hopper" reaches an impressive 34 TeraFLOPS of FP64 compute at its peak. For FP8 low-precision, the B300 delivers 9 PetaFLOPS, while the H200 provides 3.958 PetaFLOPS.

AMD has officially expanded its Radeon AI PRO R9000 workstation lineup with two new Navi 48-based cards built on the RDNA 4 architecture. The two models are the Radeon AI PRO R9700S and the Radeon AI PRO R9600D. Both models feature 32 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit interface, delivering a peak memory bandwidth of 640 GB/s. These additions offer a consistent hardware platform for professional customers who require larger frame buffer sizes for compute and visualization tasks.

The Radeon AI PRO R9700S maintains the full Navi 48 configuration with 64 CUs and 4,096 SPs. AMD rates the card at up to 47.8 TeraFLOPS of FP32 performance when the boost clock reaches 2,920 MHz, with a total board power of 300 W. The Radeon AI PRO R9600D, on the other hand, reduces the Navi 48 configuration to 48 active CUs and 3,072 SPs, offering approximately 24.8 TeraFLOPS of FP32 throughput at a boost clock of 2,020 MHz, while targeting a lower 150 W board power.

Nintendo is confronting a significant jump in memory costs that is already affecting its hardware business. This quarter the company faces roughly a 41% increase for the 12 GB LPDDR5X modules used in the Switch 2, while 256 GB of NAND flash has risen by about 8%. Those increases raise the bill of materials for every product that depends on these components and have coincided with a pullback in the company's share price to levels not seen since May. The increased spending on components comes at a time when the new console must demonstrate its long-term commercial viability. Nintendo needs to keep investing in an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly costly to sustain.

A larger portion of the per-unit cost being linked to more expensive DRAM is forcing tighter internal storage management and increasing reliance on external media, which are also trading at high prices. This raises the overall cost of ownership for gamers who purchase large third-party titles or need extra storage capacity. Since the Switch 2's profit margins were not particularly wide to begin with, absorbing a 41% increase in DRAM costs and an 8% rise in NAND costs will significantly reduce Nintendo's ability to fund promotions, subsidize bundles, or invest in additional marketing without impacting profitability. A price increase might also be necessary, as Nintendo cannot absorb all these costs.

Quantum Art, a developer of full-stack quantum computers based on trapped-ion qubits and a proprietary scale-up architecture, today announced that it has closed a $100 million Series A funding round. The investment accelerates the company's path toward commercializing its systems, achieving quantum advantage, scaling its platform to enable quantum processors with thousands of qubits, and supporting Quantum Art's expansion from early revenues into significant commercial scale.

Bedford Ridge Capital led the round. The financing brings Quantum Art's total funding to date to $124 million following a seed round in 2022. The funding accelerates the development of Perspective, a 1,000-qubit multi-core system aimed at achieving quantum advantage, and supports prototyping of the company's third-generation 2D architecture targeting thousands of qubits for high-impact, real-world applications.

Google's custom AI infrastructure is beginning to draw external interest, and the company has reportedly developed two new TPU versions: one designed for AI inference and another optimized for training. With the eighth generation of TPU designs, Google has introduced the TPUv8ax "Sunfish" for training AI models like Gemini, and the TPUv8x "Zebrafish" for large-scale model inference. For "Sunfish," Google has partnered with Broadcom and its custom design team, which handles end-to-end design, memory, supporting hardware, and packaging, providing Google with a finished product ready for integration into its extensive server infrastructure.

For the inference-focused "Zebrafish" TPUv8x, Google has enlisted MediaTek's assistance, but only in a limited capacity. Google is sourcing wafers and memory directly from suppliers, while MediaTek contributes to supporting chips and packaging efforts, areas where Google has limited expertise. This means that a lot of chip design efforts are now processed in-house, easing reliance on external partners. However, since Google is not yet up to speed with the full-stack chip design, some help is still needed. The concrete performance figures and memory capacities are still unknown. However, we expect another leap over the TPUv7 "Ironwood," which carries 4,614 TeraFLOPS at FP8 precision and 192 GB of HBM memory.

NVIDIA has reportedly developed a chip-tracking technology that will pinpoint the exact locations its GPUs are deployed in. According to a report from Reuters, this technology is a software tool that detects exactly where and how its chips are used to fight GPU smuggling networks from escaping the official U.S. sanctions. For example, NVIDIA's latest "Blackwell" GPUs have been banned from selling to Chinese entities, and GPU smugglers in other countries have been able to stock up on these and export them, bypassing the official U.S. sanctions. Just recently, NVIDIA got a green light from the Trump administration to sell its H200 "Hopper" GPUs to Chinese customers, but that excludes the more powerful "Blackwell" generation.

NVIDIA for ReutersWe're in the process of implementing a new software service that empowers data center operators to monitor the health and inventory of their entire AI GPU fleet. This customer-installed software agent leverages GPU telemetry to monitor fleet health, integrity and inventory.

OneXPlayer has launched an official Kickstarter campaign placeholder for its latest "Super X" 14-inch laptop/tablet hybrid. This device features an uncommon configuration with two form factors and offers an option for liquid cooling, making it the first two-in-one device to support an external liquid cooling unit. At the heart of the system is an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, featuring 16 cores and 32 threads running at boost speeds of 5.1 GHz. The APU is paired with a Radeon 8060S, equivalent to a desktop RTX 4060, providing the laptop with significant computing power in a 14-inch form factor.

This is where things get interesting. AMD allows a configurable TDP option for its APUs, and once the Super X device is connected to external water cooling, the cTDP increases to 120 W from its original base of 45 W. This flexibility allows the Super X unit to stay cool while operating in both laptop and tablet modes, and to boost to higher sustained frequencies when the external liquid cooling unit is connected. The Frost Bay liquid-cooling unit comes as a separate purchase, but allows the system to reach its full potential under high-intensity loads. The AMD "Strix Halo" APU can be paired with 128 GB of RAM, where 96 GB can be allocated dynamically for the GPU so it can run LLMs locally.

According to sources close to Wired, Intel has signed a new agreement with SambaNova, an AI chip startup, to acquire the company under undisclosed terms. The signed term sheet is non-binding, meaning it can be canceled under any condition, and a final deal has not yet been reached. Intel's current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has been serving as chairman of the board for SambaNova Systems, effectively giving him insider knowledge of the company's operations. The company has raised a total of $1.14 billion in funding as of early 2025, meaning that a lot of investors have shown confidence into its technology.

SambaNova develops AI chips based on its Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit (RDU), which takes a novel approach to enable trillion-parameter inference on its SambaRack rack-scale solutions. The latest 4th generation RDU features 1,040 RDU cores, 653 TeraFLOPS of BF16 (similar to FP16) compute, 520 MB of on-chip memory, 64 GB of HBM3, and is paired with a 1.5 TB external DDR memory pool to accommodate large language models for inference. Since it is a private company, we don't have sales figures officially published anywhere.

December 13, 20:35 UTC: Bloomberg reports that the deal is worth about $1.6 billion, including debt. Additionally, the deal is reportedly nearing its final stages.

Microsoft has laid out its 2026 Windows 11 vision board, highlighting what the Redmond giant has in store for its operating system. According to Microsoft, the 2026 is shaping up to be a year of optimizations, as the company is now shifting towards performance delivery, alongside new features. "We're committed to making Windows the best place to play, and we will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers," said Microsoft in its latest blog post.

Perhaps the most important pillar of this is the background workload management, which adds overhead to a system. Recently, we observed that the Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) on a regular Windows 11 build reduces background overhead, with RAM usage dropping significantly by 9.3%. Similarly, an increase in FPS of up to 8.6% can also be observed, thanks to more optimized background workload management. Features such as power and scheduling will also contribute a few percentage points of improvement, potentially making the OS overhead a negligible factor.

The latest Steam Client beta build dated to December 4th has unofficially been backported to Windows 7 SP1 x64 and Windows 8.x x64. While these operating systems have long been abandoned by Microsoft, an enthusiast "EAZY BLACK" has managed to make an unofficial backport of Steam's Client beta build. Both Windows 7 SP1 x64 and Windows 8.x x64 are platforms that Valve officially stopped supporting in early 2024. This means that any future support will come solely from the gaming community, as a dedicated effort to ensure that no one is left behind, even if they are using an unsupported operating system.

The distribution comes as compact 230 MB packages hosted on w7revived.chefkiss.dev and mirrored by BobPony. Each package is accompanied by an intriguing security warning that Windows builds must be first updated to their latest versions, which happened years ago on both Windows 7 and Windows 8. A screenshot shared with the post shows Steam operating on Windows 7 with the About dialog visible and several Half-Life titles listed, indicating that core features are functioning. Community reaction has been mixed, with many users expressing gratitude for renewed compatibility.

ASUS has officially denied a recall of its limited edition GeForce RTX 5090 ROG MATRIX graphics card, which was reportedly facing some quality issues. However, ASUS was quick to dispute these claims. In the past, an ASUS reportedly representative informed Swedish e-tailer "Inet" that they had identified a quality issue with the RTX 5090 32 GB ROG Matrix Platinum 30th Anniversary Edition, preventing planned deliveries while they worked on an undated replacement. However, in ComputerBase update from Christian Wefers, part of ASUS Public Relations, the situation is now clearer:

Christian WefersThere is no product recall for the ROG Matrix GeForce RTX 5090. We proactively adjusted the original timeline to allow additional time for product improvements and to ensure an optimal customer experience. The products will arrive at our partners within the next few days. Availability may vary by region.

The Trump administration has approved a framework allowing NVIDIA to resume exports of its H200 data center accelerators to China, subject to a revenue-sharing condition that allocates 25% of sales proceeds to the U.S. government. Rather than lifting export restrictions outright, the arrangement requires that recipients be vetted through Commerce Department licensing, so shipments will be controlled and limited to approved commercial customers. The decision reopens a major market for high-end accelerators while maintaining a regulatory channel to monitor distribution.

The H200 chip remains a powerful solution for large-scale AI workloads even today. Manufactured using TSMC's N4 process, it combines NVIDIA's "Hopper"-derived architecture with 141 GB of HBM3E memory and 4.8 TB/s memory bandwidth, making it ideal for large model training and dense inference tasks. Although it doesn't match the performance of NVIDIA's current "Blackwell" family and other upcoming accelerators, the H200 is a mature product that has been shipping since spring 2024 and benefits from a well-developed driver and software ecosystem. Its raw compute power is roughly double that of solutions like the Huawei Ascend 910C, making it very competitive even today.

As part of the "Granite Ridge" Ryzen 9000 X3D series, AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor has been spotted running with 9,800 MT/s DDR5 memory, placing this late-cycle "Zen 5" SKU unusually high for its class. The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D features 8 cores and 16 threads, 96 MB of L3 cache, and a boost clock of up to 5.6 GHz, with a 120 W TDP. What sets this processor apart is not just the 400 MHz increase over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D model, which shares the same cache and core configuration. Officially, AMD's Ryzen 9000 series supports DDR5 memory speeds up to 5600 MT/s, but this model could push that number to 9,800 MT/s if the reports are accurate.

AMD might be using higher-binned IODs it has accumulated over the past few months to offer a competitive alternative to Intel's upcoming "Arrow Lake Refresh," set for early 2026, and "Nova Lake," scheduled for late 2026. Since the overall "Granite Ridge" family officially supports much lower DDR5 memory speeds, in line with JEDEC specifications, a new or better-tested IOD could enable these 9,800 MT/s speeds. In the BIOS image below, you can see a 9,800 MT/s figure. We can disregard the incorrect date, as it could have been intentionally altered by the leaker to prevent AMD from tracing the source. The CPU picture below serves as a mockup of what the actual design might look like.

Valve is reportedly attempting to persuade the HDMI Forum—the consortium responsible for HDMI development—to allow open-source support for HDMI 2.1 on Linux, enabling the standard to function without restrictions on SteamOS. When Valve launched its Steam Machine, it was listed with HDMI 2.0 support, which seemed an odd choice given that HDMI 2.1 had become more prevalent. However, the Steam Machine does indeed feature an HDMI 2.1 port, but due to the HDMI Forum's stance against open implementations, Valve officially listed it as supporting the older HDMI 2.0.

According to an interview with Ars Technica, Valve is now trying to clarify this situation. The company has been "working on trying to unblock things there" to gain official support and approval for HDMI 2.1 from the HDMI Forum. In early 2024, AMD proposed incorporating key HDMI 2.1 features, such as 4K at 120 Hz and 5K at 240 Hz, into their open-source Linux graphics driver, AMDGPU. However, the HDMI Forum quickly criticized the proposal, and AMD stated: "The HDMI Forum has rejected our proposal, unfortunately. At this time, an open-source HDMI 2.1 implementation is not possible without violating HDMI Forum requirements."

Lenovo is reportedly preparing an unusual Legion Pro Rollable gaming laptop that transitions from a conventional clamshell design into an ultrawide machine, according to an early leak from Windows Latest ahead of CES 2026. Promotional materials circulating before the show depict a motorized display that expands both left and right, transforming the panel from a standard 16:9 aspect ratio to an ultrawide 21:9 format. It confirms the use of an Intel Core Ultra class processor, although specific SKUs are not detailed. The processors could be Intel's "Panther Lake," which is why the CES rollout is scheduled without specifying an exact SKU.

The imagery and descriptions in the leak suggest that the design incorporates additional screen area rolled up inside the lid, which unfolds outward as rails extend, creating a continuous, wider viewing surface. When closed, the notebook maintains a typical Legion appearance with a centered OLED panel. Once deployed, motors extend the hidden sections from both sides to form the ultrawide display. Although Lenovo has not released full specifications, the Legion family's history suggests that a discrete NVIDIA RTX class GPU and a refresh rate of at least 120 hertz are likely.

As we receive official software confirmation from Intel, shipping manifests are reinforcing the presence of the Arc "Battlemage" B770 GPU. This GPU is expected to have a 300 W TDP, marking Intel's highest-ever rating in the consumer Arc discrete GPU sector. A 300 W board-level rating significantly exceeds Intel's recent mainstream offerings. Previous high-end cards, like the Arc "Alchemist" A770 and several B-series "Battlemage" models, have board power figures ranging from approximately 190 to 225 W. The consistent bracket code across multiple entries indicates that this is an intentional hardware component undergoing testing. Records list a consumer-style part number, N38341-001, and repeatedly describe a "TASDK 300 W GPU BRKT."

Intel also recently confirmed that the BMG-G31 die is now officially supported by the latest VTune Profiler software update. This BMG-G31 "Battlemage" part will be packaged as the B770 SKU, equipped with roughly 32 Xe2 cores and 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit interface. The design is reported to offer a full PCIe 5.0 x16 connection and will be available in multiple SKUs, allowing Intel to cater to both gamers and professional users. A workstation-oriented Arc Pro variant could further expand memory capacity for single-GPU configurations.

Interesting developments are unfolding in the world of DRAM and NAND flash, as one of the largest players, SK Hynix, has announced product updates for 2026. The company appears to be following its competitor Samsung by slowing the ramp-up of its next-generation HBM4. Initially, SK Hynix planned to increase its HBM4 capacity in the second quarter of 2026. However, this has been postponed to the third quarter of 2026, as the company plans to expand its HBM4 manufacturing capacity. The delay is due to the high demand for its current HBM3E capacity, necessitating the continued operation of HBM3E manufacturing sites longer than expected. SK Hynix's largest customer for HBM chips, NVIDIA, is reportedly facing challenges with the volume production of "Rubin," delaying the need for HBM4, while the HBM3E-equipped "Blackwell" remains in strong demand.