Resonac, a Japanese chip-materials maker, has announced the creation of Joint 3, which it describes as a consortium of 27 companies working together on semiconductor-related developments. "With next-generation technologies like generative AI and self-driving cars rapidly spreading, the technology required for semiconductors is getting more advanced and complex," Resonac CEO Hidehito Takahashi said Wednesday. Companies from a number of countries will be involved in Joint 3, which is led by Resonac. The list includes St Paul, Minnesota's 3M, Rolla, Missouri's Brewer Science, Sunnyvale, California's Synopsys and Singapore-headquartered, Hong Kong-listed ASMPT.

SINGAPORE--American workers hold key positions throughout China's domestic chip industry, helping manufacturers develop new chips to catch up with foreign rivals. Now, those workers are in limbo under new U.S. export control rules that prohibit U.S. citizens from supporting China's advanced chip development. At least 43 senior executives working with 16 publicly listed Chinese semiconductor companies are American citizens, according to an examination of company filings and official websites by The Wall Street Journal. Many of them hold C-suite titles, from chief executive to vice president and chairman. Almost all of the executives moved to China's chip industry after spending years working in Silicon Valley for U.S. chip makers or semiconductor equipment firms, according to the companies' filings.

The Biden administration is working to limit U.S. exports of certain semiconductors and equipment because of fears that Chinese companies could use them for military purposes. Graphics processors like the kind that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices make are well suited for artificial intelligence applications that could include weapons development, facial recognition and other military uses. The H100 is Nvidia's upcoming enterprise AI chip that was previously expected to ship by the end of the year. Part of its development takes place in China. The A100 is an older model that has been shipping for three years. They are both graphics processors that can be used for supercomputing and artificial intelligence.

Last year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funds a range of blue-sky research efforts relevant to the US military, launched a $1.5 billion, five-year program known as the Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI) to support work on advances in chip technology. The agency has just unveiled the first set of research teams selected to explore unproven but potentially powerful approaches that could revolutionize US chip development and manufacturing. Hardware innovation has taken something of a back seat to software advances in recent years, and that bothers the US military for several reasons. At the top of the list is that Moore's Law, which holds that the number of transistors fitted on a chip doubles roughly every two years, is reaching its limits (see "Moore's Law is dead. That could stymie future advances in electronics that the military relies on, unless new architectures and designs can allow progress in chip performance to continue.

Tech companies are keen to bring cool artificial intelligence features to phones and augmented reality goggles--the ability to show mechanics how to fix an engine, say, or tell tourists what they are seeing and hearing in their own language. But there's one big challenge: how to manage the vast quantities of data that make such feats possible without making the devices too slow or draining the battery in minutes and wrecking the user experience. Microsoft Corp. says it has the answer with a chip design for its HoloLens goggles--an extra AI processor that analyzes what the user sees and hears right there on the device rather than wasting precious microseconds sending the data back to the cloud. The new processor, a version of the company's existing Holographic Processing Unit, is being unveiled at an event in Honolulu, Hawaii, today. The chip is under development and will be included in the next version of HoloLens; the company didn't provide a date.

Microsoft Corp. says it has the answer with a chip design for its HoloLens goggles--an extra AI processor that analyzes what the user sees and hears right there on the device rather than wasting precious microseconds sending the data back to the cloud. "For an autonomous car, you can't afford the time to send it back to the cloud to make the decisions to avoid the crash, to avoid hitting a person. But the rapid development of artificial intelligence has left some traditional chip makers facing real competition for the first time in over a decade. More recently, in an effort to take on Google and Amazon.com Inc. in cloud services, the company used customizable chips known as field programmable gate arrays to unleash its AI prowess on real-world challenges.

Technology companies are keen to bring artificial intelligence features to phones and augmented reality goggles -- the ability show mechanics how to fix an engine, say, or tell tourists what they are seeing and hearing in their own language. But there's one big challenge: how to manage the vast quantities of data that make such feats possible without making the devices too slow or draining the battery in minutes and wrecking the user experience. Microsoft says it has the answer with a chip design for its HoloLens goggles -- an extra AI processor that analyses what the user sees and hears right there on the device rather than wasting precious microseconds sending the data back to the cloud. The new processor, a version of the company's existing Holographic Processing Unit, is being unveiled at an event in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Monday. The chip is under development and will be included in the next version of HoloLens; the company didn't provide a date.

The world's fastest computer runs a Chinese chip, and that fact hasn't escaped notice by the U.S. government. So how does the U.S. government bludgeon the Chinese chip threat? A new U.S. government working group aims to encourage domestic companies to use homegrown chip technology and resist the urge to buy inexpensive Chinese semiconductors. The White House this week established the Semiconductor Working Group, a private-public advisory group that will create policy and research guidelines for semiconductor development. The ultimate goal is to retain U.S. leadership in semiconductor technology.