Are Microsoft's AI plans being held back by a shortage of chips? Mon 17 Aug 2026 00.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 17 Aug 2026 00.15 EDT The chips are quite small and some can be held in the palm of a hand. They are fundamental to the development of artificial intelligence models - and the world's biggest technology companies need vast numbers of them to keep ahead. Microsoft is one of them. And, on paper, it seems to have a problem.

Taiwan's tech titan Foxconn has reported a forecast-busting second-quarter net profit, as exploding demand for artificial intelligence servers needed in data centres powers the company's growth. The world's largest contract electronics maker said on Wednesday that net income rose 35 percent to $59.97 billion New Taiwan dollars ($1.86bn) in the April-June period. "AI infrastructure is driving growth," Foxconn said in its earnings announcement. In an earnings release, Foxconn, Nvidia's biggest server maker and Apple's top iPhone assembler, stuck to its previous forecast of "strong" growth for revenue this year. Governments and tech giants are pouring huge sums into building data centres that can train and run AI tools such as chatbots, image generators and agents that can execute tasks.

I wore the world's first HDR10 smart glasses TCL's new E Ink tablet beats the Remarkable and Kindle Anker's new charger is one of the most unique I've ever seen I wore the world's first HDR10 smart glasses TCL's new E Ink tablet beats the Remarkable and Kindle Anker's new charger is one of the most unique I've ever seen Nvidia's open Nemotron 3.5 Lightning model is all about specialized, local agentic AI Our AI Model Release Tracker keeps new models in context with their peers, so you know which are worth your time. AI labs are shipping new models nonstop. Besides being better and faster than their predecessors, not every new model is guaranteed to be a major step change, despite how the company's PR may wax poetic about them. Model strengths really emerge in context: Where are competitor models lacking or excelling? Which models have outstanding specialties, and which are just catching up to industry standards? Our Model Release Tracker helps you make sense of where models stand relative to each other and whether they're worth a deeper look. While we don't test every model or model update on this list, we'll always include the key elements you need to know, along with our hands-on expert test, where applicable.

The Chinese have broken the Dutch company's hold over deep-ultraviolet lithography, a technique essential to the computer chip supply chain. The Chinese have broken the Dutch company's hold over deep-ultraviolet lithography, a technique essential to the computer chip supply chain. Even for the rollercoaster world of AI, last week was particularly volatile as investors scrambled to keep up with developments that threatened the dominance of the largest western chipmakers. It began with a double whammy. On Monday, the Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT floated on the Shanghai stock market, soaring by 466% in value to 3.3tn yuan (£365bn).

NVIDIA has gathered together some of the biggest tech companies in the world to form the Open Secure AI Alliance with the goal of improving cybersecurity. Among the 27 founding members are Microsoft, SpaceX, Dell, The Linux Foundation and NVIDIA itself. "The Open Secure AI Alliance -- building on the leadership of the Linux Foundation's Akrites initiative and OpenSSF community work -- will work to remediate and disclose vulnerabilities using open technologies," NVIDIA wrote. The group argues that to best defend against attacks in the age of AI models like Anthropic's Mythos 5, security researchers need access to both open and closed frontier models. As a prime example, NVIDIA cited OpenAI's recent rogue attack on Hugging Face.

Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform combines CPUs and GPUs into a single system, reflecting the company's growing ambition to power every layer of AI infrastructure. Nvidia is hyping up its new Vera Rubin chip system this week, revealing new performance benchmarks for the GPU and CPU combo ahead of rival AMD's annual product event in San Francisco on Thursday. During a lengthy technical workshop last week at the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Nvidia executives boasted to a small group of journalists about the chip system's increased power and efficiency capabilities. The biggest takeaway: Nvidia, which has long specialized in making GPUs, is increasingly trying to position itself as a supplier of CPUs that can power AI agents. While GPUs are still the main hardware that companies use to train and run their AI models, the industry's shift toward more complex, agentic systems has increased demand for CPUs, which can orchestrate data flows, networking, and other software tasks.

Apple regains top spot as world's most valuable company Apple has surpassed chipmaker Nvidia as the world's most valuable company as artificial intelligence-driven market pressures weigh on investors. Apple is now worth $4.88 trillion compared with Nvidia's $4.86 trillion, following a 3.5 percent decline in Nvidia's market value. The milestone marks the first time the Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker has held the top spot in more than a year. Last month, Apple unveiled a revamped version of its assistant, Siri AI, which enables the personal assistant to better understand the personal context of users' questions, access real-time information from the Web, and perform more complex tasks on behalf of users. "Market sentiment has shifted from rewarding model makers, then to semis, and now on to those companies that can turn compute into experiences and outcomes the customer will pay for, thus driving corporate earnings," Michael Monaghan, founder of Founder ETFs, told Al Jazeera. "Apple investors first questioned Apple's lower AI spend, but now have treated Apple's lower AI capital expenditure as an advantage, with the bull case being that Apple benefits from consumer AI without spending at cloud-infrastructure scale."

The Apple Store signage is seen at Grand Central Station in New York City earlier this year. The Apple Store signage is seen at Grand Central Station in New York City earlier this year. Apple dethrones Nvidia to regain title of world's most valuable company Apple overtook Nvidia on Friday to become the world's most valuable company, reshuffling the top ranks of tech heavyweights as investors reassess the outlook for artificial intelligence. Apple was last valued at $4.88tn as its shares held steady, while Nvidia was roughly at $4.86tn, after a 3.5% decline. Nvidia became the first company in the world to surpass a $5tn market valuation in October, a landmark that propelled it into a rarefied territory that was far beyond the reach of its rivals.

Are Humanoid Robots Ready to Be Deployed? Neo and a dozen other robots with human forms are scheduled to hit the market. "The same robot that can land a backflip might not be able to walk up a flight of stairs," a researcher said. On a recent sunny day in Silicon Valley, I visited the industrial headquarters of 1X Technologies. Security was tight, so I had to put a sticker over my cellphone's camera and talk my way out of signing an N.D.A. before I was brought into an enormous space to meet Neo, the company's home robot. Neo stands five feet six and has no facial features except for two black cameras in place of eyes. The robot is a humanoid--its design is inspired by the human form--and its proportions are a blend of those of the median American male and those of the median American female. But Neo has no skin. Instead, it wears a beige nylon turtleneck bodysuit, gloves, and padded shoes over a see-through carapace. Under that is a skeleton made up of more than a hundred whizzing motors and cordlike artificial tendons that control Neo's limbs. Neo's cozy, minimalist aesthetic allows it to blend into the background. If it served me an espresso at a café, I'm not certain I would look up from my phone. The robot weighs just sixty-six pounds, and I was able to pick it up in a bridal carry. It communicates through a speaker in its chest, using several different voices; the default one is in a calm but authoritative masculine register, an A.I.-modulated mixture of several voice actors. Neo can talk, listen, and respond to commands.

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.