❌

Normal view

Yesterday β€” 20 March 2026Main stream
Before yesterdayMain stream

Global chip supply chain under threat as US-Iran conflict enters third week β€” Strait of Hormuz blockade is days away from crippling Taiwan's semiconductor industry

Taiwan imports almost all of its energy and requires large amounts of LNG to sustain its electrical grid. That grid is then used by local chipmakers β€” like TSMC who is responsible for making most of the world's high-end chips. Fabrication for these chips requires helium, which Taiwan also imports and right now, the Iran-U.S. conflict has made it difficult to acquire both.

Meta's new MTIA lineup joins hyperscalers' unified push for dedicated inferencing chips β€” companies diversify AI chips in effort to diversify from sole reliance on Nvidia

16 March 2026 at 22:19
As Meta introduces its lineup of new AI chips, the company joins other tech giants in diversifying the AI accelerators used for specific workloads, and says that mainstream GPUs built for large-scale pre-training are less cost-effective for inference workloads.

The ongoing Strait of Hormuz blockage will impact the semiconductor and AI industries with Aluminum, Helium and LNG shortages β€” and with no timeline for re-opening, supply chains face significant challenges

13 March 2026 at 20:56
As global oil prices spike due to the ongoing pseudo-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, other shortages are looming, and they could hit the chip and AI industries dramatically. Aluminum and helium for chip production have been impacted, but shortages of LNG could also cause problems for gas turbines powering many AI data centers.

❌
❌