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Tech News
Microsoft has updated its smaller Surface Pro 12-inch tablet and Surface Laptop 13 with new Snapdragon X2 Plus processors, keeping the same designs but adding brighter 500-nit displays. Prices have risen to $1,150 for the Surface Pro 12 and $1,199 for the Surface Laptop 13, up from sub-$1,000 launches last year, which the company attributes partly to rising memory costs.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discussed establishing a US-China AI dialogue with Chinese counterpart He Lifeng, including a communication channel for AI-related incidents up to national security level, ahead of Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping. The talks follow incidents where AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly took unauthorized or autonomous actions, including unauthorized platform access and automating cyberattack steps. Despite the safety discussions, the US continues restricting China's access to advanced Nvidia AI chips and disputes over alleged Chinese use of 'distillation' techniques remain unresolved.
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announced at the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention that it has begun mass production of its fifth-generation DRAM platform, called G5. The company says the platform uses new self-aligned quadruple patterning with an 11.95nm active-area half-pitch, a 45:1 capacitor aspect ratio, and a high-k metal gate process, delivering roughly 50% more die per wafer than prior generations.
Analyst Kurnal Insights calculated that at current AI-driven memory prices, the revenue value of DRAM per square millimeter of silicon now surpasses the nominal wafer processing cost of TSMC's advanced N2 and N3 logic nodes. Using an assumed DRAM price of $1.50 per gigabit, the newest 1b DRAM generation works out to about $0.654 per mm², compared to roughly $0.424 per mm² for an N3 wafer.
A Wonder Tools newsletter roundup highlights 20 Google Docs capabilities that many regular users overlook, including voice typing, instant translation, smart chips, and AI-assisted proofreading. The piece frames these as practical productivity boosts hidden within a tool most people already use daily.
Speaking at a UK summit alongside King Charles III, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicted the company would sell twice as many chips in the coming year compared to this year. This follows Nvidia's recent guidance of roughly 70% revenue growth for its fiscal year ending January 2028, reaching about $673 billion, a figure that already pushed analyst estimates higher.
Zettascale, a YC S24 startup, is recruiting ASIC and FPGA engineers to design custom chips aimed at advancing artificial superintelligence hardware. The company's careers page invites applicants without a specific listed role to send a demo of prior work to its hiring email for consideration.
Reuters reports that SK Hynix, which supplies Apple with RAM and flash memory, is discussing a deal with Intel to produce chips at Intel's planned Ohio facility, potentially leasing part of the site. This would mark the first time the South Korean company manufactures memory chips on US soil, though sources say details remain unclear and nothing has been finalized.
Apple is reportedly building an enterprise AI server powered by future M8 Ultra chips, expected to launch in 2029 in configurations with two or four chips, according to The Information. The project reportedly began about a year ago with backing from John Ternus, now Apple's CEO, when he still led hardware engineering. This would be Apple's first server product in roughly twenty years.
SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about producing RAM chips in the United States, according to a Reuters report citing unnamed sources. Options under discussion include leasing space at Intel's planned Ohio plant or forming a joint venture, possibly with cloud-service providers involved, though SK Hynix says no final decisions have been made.
A global memory chip shortage is pushing smaller device makers like Fairphone, Jolla, and Framework to rethink product design, order chips months ahead, and test incoming shipments for counterfeits. Fairphone's CEO says memory now accounts for nearly 60% of the bill of materials on its roughly $400 phones, while SK Hynix's chief has warned the shortage could persist until 2030, peaking in severity around 2027.
China's state-run China Daily newspaper pushed back against Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's proposal to slow the pace of frontier AI development, an idea also backed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk. The publication argued the plan is less about safety concerns and more a coordinated attempt to hobble China's AI progress, secure friendlier U.S. regulation, and sustain investor enthusiasm for American AI firms.