When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. I'm happy to see a new NVMe SSD from Samsung, though it's not as fast as the older 990 EVO Plus. The 990 is a step up from the 990 EVO, though the write rate plummets when secondary cache runs out. But it's slower than the older 990 EVO Plus and not a bargain, even given the current NAND crunch. New NVMe SSD releases have become increasingly rare -- another casualty of the AI data center gold rush.

Image caption, Samsung is also one of the world's leading smartphone makers South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics says it expects to post a 19-fold jump in its profits, driven by global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips. The company forecast that it made 89tn won (£44bn; $58bn) between the start of April and the end of June, marking its third record quarterly operating profits in a row. Major South Korean firms like Samsung release forecasts of their earnings ahead of official detailed reports to help guide investors. Samsung's latest forecast, released on Tuesday ahead of its full results due later in July, comes as demand for semiconductors continues to outstrip supplies - which has pushed up prices . Samsung said in the preview, known as earnings guidance, that it brought in around 171tn won of sales during the quarter, more than double the amount for the same period last year.

Thanks to the AI-driven chip shortage, prices for phones, computers, and consoles are sky-high--and still climbing. If you're in the market for anything with a memory chip in it, now might be the time to snag it. Another round of price increases for consumer electronics seems to be underway. In June, Apple announced increased prices for its MacBooks and iPads . Xbox consoles are also getting more expensive starting in August.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Samsung's 27-inch 1440p gaming monitor is $149 -- still 40% off after Prime Day Samsung's Odyssey G51F is still at its lowest ever price of $149.99, The special Prime Day price we saw for Samsung's Odyssey G51F gaming monitor last week? It's still going, which means you can grab this 27-inch 1440p display for just $149.99, a good 40% off its $250 MSRP. If you're still on 1080p, this is an excellent time to upgrade.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung delivers a speech on June 25. SEOUL - South Korea is set to unveil three "mega-projects" to fuel its next growth phase, including a new semiconductor hub in the southwest that local media say could attract investments by Samsung and SK spanning hundreds of billions of dollars over several years. The announcement would mark President Lee Jae Myung's boldest push yet to align South Korea's AI and chip ambitions with his pledge to narrow regional disparities and revive economies beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. Lee will preside over the event, framed as a national "great leap" due to be unveiled around 2 p.m., his office said, with ministries covering industry, science, climate and transport set to outline policy support. Samsung Electronics and SK are expected to present investment plans, and their chairmen, Jay Y. Lee and Chey Tae-won, are among business leaders tipped to attend by local media. Representatives of other firms including LG Electronics, HD Hyundai Robotics, Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Water Resources Corp. are also attending, Lee's office said.

Samsung's Excellent OLED Monitors Are Up to 36 Percent Off for Prime Day Samsung makes some of the very best OLED gaming monitors, and they've never been this affordable. Samsung makes some of the very best OLED monitors out there, and some of its top gaming monitors are getting some solid discounts for Prime Day. The strongest deal on offer is on the Odyssey G6 (G61SH). This 27-inch monitor is one of the company's latest displays, offering a 240-Hz refresh rate at a 2560 x 1440 resolution. It's been sold below its retail price off and on over the past few months, but this is the lowest it's ever dropped to.

Sony is halting sales of its Aibo robotic dog in Japan, ending an era for the interactive pet that became an instant hit and developed its own personality. Sony is halting sales of its Aibo robotic puppy in Japan, the company has said, eight years after the latest model of its interactive android pet became an instant hit. The Thursday announcement marks the end of an era for loyal fans of the high-tech toy, which develops its own personality and can perform tricks like waving and mimicking its owner. It was also a big comeback for Sony's robot dog. The first iteration of Aibo came out in 1999, followed by numerous models over the years -- from angular metallic-silver bots to more cuddly round-faced versions -- with more than 150,000 units sold. But by 2006, Sony, facing a tough business environment, pulled the plug on Aibo, seen as something of a frivolous luxury.

IBM hails new'block of flats' design breakthrough for ultra tiny chips Image caption, IBM's new sub-1 nm chip crams almost 100 billion transistors onto a surface the size of a fingernail IBM has unveiled a new chip design which it says could enable manufacturers to cram 100 billion transistors on a silicon chip the size of a fingernail. The current industry-standard size for chips, measured in a the unit of nanometres - a billionth of a metre and the size of a few atoms - is around two nanometres (nm). But IBM claims its new chip tech is the equivalent of around 0.7nm, which may make it the world's first known chip technology below 1nm. However, it will be several years before the chip tech could be ready to go into production. The firm claims in tests, its prototype performed 50% better than its own 2nm chip and was 70% more energy efficient.

Modular, one of the most promising chip software startups of the AI era, heads for a multibillion-dollar exit. Qualcomm will acquire the Silicon Valley chip startup Modular for nearly $4 billion. The companies announced the acquisition on Wednesday; Qualcomm said it expects to issue up to 19.2 million shares of common stock in the deal, which works out to just under $4 billion based on the company's last closing share price. The deal, which includes $300 million for Modular employees, comes nine months after the chip startup raised $250 million at a $1.6 billion valuation . It's expected to close in the second half of this year.

The AI era needs ever faster chips. ASML has a monopoly on the expensive contraptions needed to pattern them. Jos Benschop is climbing a ladder to get to the top of his newest machine. The contraption is the size of a double-decker bus--more than 150 tons of gleaming precision-milled aluminum covered in thousands of snaking tubes, colored cables, and pressurized tanks. From the ground, it looks like a futuristic V8 engine. When I reach the top with Benschop we're looking down from about 15 feet in the air, with bunny-suited technicians scurrying around below. It's more than 200 cubic meters of tech--"mechatronic devices that hold a few mirrors in a position with atomic precision," he says, gesturing at the gargantuan apparatus. Benschop, a tall and grizzled 66-year-old, has spent over a decade working with his engineers to design this thing, but even so, he'll sometimes look at it and go: Benschop is the executive vice president of technology for ASML, a Dutch company that is the linchpin of the microchip industry. If you want to make powerful chips to power phones or AI, a lithography machine like the one we're standing on is what you need to create increasingly tiny circuitry. Lithography is the art and science of shining light on a silicon wafer to pattern out the transistors, wiring, and other components of the microchips that will be cut from it. The chipmaking field is essentially controlled by only two big players: ASML, which creates the lithography machines, and TSMC, the chipmaking giant. Nine years ago, ASML began selling machines that use a daring new way of patterning chip features.