Semiconductors

Four new Echo devices debut with Amazon’s next-gen Alexa+

Amazon has unveiled four new Echo devices powered by Alexa+, its next-generation AI assistant. The lineup includes Echo Dot Max, Echo Studio, Echo Show 8, and Echo Show 11, all designed for personalised, ambient AI-driven experiences. Buyers will automatically gain access to Alexa+.

At the core are the new AZ3 and AZ3 Pro chips, which feature AI accelerators, powering advanced models for speech, vision, and ambient interaction. The Echo Dot Max, priced at $99.99, features a two-speaker system with triple the bass, while the Echo Studio, priced at $219.99, adds spatial audio and Dolby Atmos.

The Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 introduce HD displays, enhanced audio, and intelligent sensing capabilities. Both feature 13-megapixel cameras that adapt to lighting and personalise interactions. The Echo Show 8 will cost $179.99, while the Echo Show 11 is priced at $219.99.

Beyond hardware, Alexa+ brings deeper conversational skills and more intelligent daily support, spanning home organisation, entertainment, health, wellness, and shopping. Amazon also introduced the Alexa+ Store, a platform for discovering third-party services and integrations.

The Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio will launch on October 29, while the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 arrive on November 12. Amazon positions the new portfolio as a leap toward making ambient AI experiences central to everyday living.

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Semicon Coalition unites EU on chip strategy and autonomy

European ministers have signed the Declaration of the Semicon Coalition, calling for a revised EU Chips Act 2.0 to boost semiconductor resilience, innovation, and competitiveness. The declaration outlines five priorities: collaboration, investment, skills, sustainability, and global partnerships.

The coalition, launched by the Netherlands in March, includes Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Other EU states joined today in Brussels, where Dutch minister Vincent Karremans presented the declaration to the European Commission.

Over fifty leading European and international semiconductor players have endorsed the declaration. This support strengthens momentum for placing end-markets at the core of the EU’s semiconductor strategy and aligns with Mario Draghi’s report on competitiveness.

The priorities include aligning EU and national funding, accelerating approvals for strategic projects, building a skilled talent pipeline, and promoting circular, energy-efficient manufacturing. International partnerships will also be deepened while safeguarding European strategic autonomy.

Minister Karremans said the strategy demonstrates Europe’s response to global tensions and its commitment to boosting semiconductor capacity, research funding, and readiness for demand in AI, automotive, energy, and defense.

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EU and Indonesia free trade deal strengthens tech and digital supply chains

The European Union and Indonesia have concluded negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and an Investment Protection Agreement (IPA), strongly emphasising technology, digitalisation and sustainable industries.

The agreements are designed to expand trade, secure critical raw materials, and drive the green and digital transitions.

Under the CEPA, tariffs on 98.5% of trade lines will be removed, cutting costs by €600 million annually and giving EU companies greater access to Indonesia’s fast-growing technology sectors, including electric vehicles, electronics and pharmaceuticals.

European firms will also gain full ownership rights in key service areas such as computers and telecommunications, helping deepen integration of digital supply chains.

A deal that embeds commitments to the Paris Agreement while promoting renewable energy and low-carbon technologies. It also includes cooperation on digital standards, intellectual property protections and trade facilitation for sectors vital to Europe’s clean tech and digital industries.

With Indonesia as a leading producer of critical raw materials, the agreement secures sustainable and predictable access to inputs essential for semiconductors, batteries and other strategic technologies.

Launched in 2016, the negotiations concluded after the political agreement reached in July 2025 between Presidents Ursula von der Leyen and Prabowo Subianto. The texts will undergo legal review before the EU and Indonesia ratification, opening a new chapter in tech-enabled trade and innovation.

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NVIDIA and OpenAI partner to build 10 gigawatts of AI data centres

OpenAI and NVIDIA have announced a strategic partnership to build at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centres powered by millions of NVIDIA GPUs.

A deal, supported by the investment of up to $100 billion from NVIDIA, that aims to provide the infrastructure for OpenAI’s next generation of models, with the first phase scheduled for late 2026 on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform.

The companies said the collaboration will enable the development of AGI and accelerate AI adoption worldwide. OpenAI will treat NVIDIA as its preferred strategic compute and networking partner, coordinating both sides’ hardware and software roadmaps.

They will also continue working with Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank and other partners to build advanced AI infrastructure.

OpenAI has grown to more than 700 million weekly users across businesses and developers globally. Executives at both firms described the new partnership as the next leap in AI computing power, one intended to fuel innovation at scale instead of incremental improvements.

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BlackRock backs South Korea push to become Asia AI hub

South Korea has secured a significant partnership with BlackRock to accelerate its ambition of becoming Asia’s leading AI hub. The agreement will see the global asset manager join the Ministry of Science and ICT in developing hyperscale AI data centres.

A deal that followed a meeting between President Lee Jae Myung and BlackRock chair Larry Fink, who pledged to attract large-scale international investment into the country’s AI infrastructure.

Although no figures were disclosed, the partnership is expected to focus on meeting rising demand from domestic users and the wider Asia-Pacific region, with renewable energy powering the facilities.

The move comes as Seoul increases national funding for AI, semiconductors and other strategic technologies to KRW150 trillion ($107.7 billion). South Korean companies are also stepping up efforts, with SK Telecom announcing plans to raise AI investment to a third of its revenue over five years.

BlackRock’s involvement signals international confidence in South Korea’s long-term vision to position itself as a regional AI powerhouse and secure a leadership role in next-generation digital infrastructure.

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OpenAI and NVIDIA forge $100B AI power deal

OpenAI and NVIDIA have unveiled plans for a major partnership to build next-generation AI infrastructure, with NVIDIA committing up to $100 billion to support OpenAI’s push toward superintelligence. The deal, outlined in a letter of intent, will see NVIDIA provide at least 10 gigawatts of computing power, with the first systems expected to be online in late 2026 through its new Vera Rubin platform.

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang called the agreement the next leap forward in AI, noting the companies’ decade-long collaboration from the early DGX supercomputers to the rise of ChatGPT. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman stressed that computing power is now the backbone of the future economy, framing the new investment as vital for both breakthroughs and large-scale access to AI.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman emphasised the scale of the move, saying 10 gigawatts of computing will allow the organisation to expand the frontier of intelligence and make the benefits of AI more widely available. NVIDIA will serve as OpenAI’s preferred partner for compute and networking, with both companies coordinating their hardware and software roadmaps.

The alliance builds on OpenAI’s existing collaborations with companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and SoftBank, which are working with the group to develop advanced AI infrastructure. Together, they are targeting global enterprise adoption while ensuring systems can grow at a pace that matches AI’s rapid evolution.

With over 700 million weekly active users and strong uptake across businesses and developers, OpenAI sees the partnership as central to its mission of creating artificial general intelligence that benefits humanity. Details of the deal are expected to be finalised in the coming weeks.

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Quantinuum’s 12-qubit system achieves unassailable quantum advantage

Researchers have reached a major milestone in quantum computing, demonstrating a task that surpasses the capabilities of classical machines. Using Quantinuum’s 12-qubit ion-trap system, they delivered the first permanent, provable example of quantum supremacy, settling a long-running debate.

The experiment addressed a communication-complexity problem in which one processor (Alice) prepared a state and another (Bob) measured it. After 10,000 trials, the team proved that no classical algorithm could match the quantum result with fewer than 62 bits, with equivalent performance requiring 330 bits.

Unlike earlier claims of quantum supremacy, later challenged by improved classical algorithms, the researchers say no future breakthrough can close this gap. Experts hailed the result as a rare proof of permanent quantum advantage and a significant step forward in the field.

However, like past demonstrations, the result has no immediate commercial application. It remains a proof-of-principle demonstration showing that quantum hardware can outperform classical machines under certain conditions, but it has yet to solve real-world problems.

Future work could strengthen the result by running Alice and Bob on separate devices to rule out interaction effects. Experts say the next step is achieving useful quantum supremacy, where quantum machines beat classical ones on problems with real-world value.

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Intel to design custom CPUs as part of NVIDIA AI partnership

The two US tech firms, NVIDIA and Intel, have announced a major partnership to develop multiple generations of AI infrastructure and personal computing products.

They say that the collaboration will merge NVIDIA’s leadership in accelerated computing with Intel’s expertise in CPUs and advanced manufacturing.

For data centres, Intel will design custom x86 CPUs for NVIDIA, which will be integrated into the company’s AI platforms to power hyperscale and enterprise workloads.

In personal computing, Intel will create x86 system-on-chips that incorporate NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets, aimed at delivering high-performance PCs for a wide range of consumers.

As part of the deal, NVIDIA will invest $5 billion in Intel common stock at $23.28 per share, pending regulatory approvals.

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang described the collaboration as a ‘fusion of two world-class platforms’ that will accelerate computing innovation, while Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the partnership builds on decades of x86 innovation and will unlock breakthroughs across industries.

The move underscores how AI is reshaping both infrastructure and personal computing. By combining architectures and ecosystems instead of pursuing separate paths, Intel and NVIDIA are positioning themselves to shape the next era of computing at a global scale.

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Huawei unveils roadmap for next-generation AI super pods

Huawei chairman Xu outlined the company’s roadmap for AI computing platforms, revealing plans to launch the Atlas 950 SuperPoD in Q4 2026. The system will use over 8,000 Ascend GPUs across 128 racks, covering 1,000 sq metres, and offer 6.7 times more computing power and 15 times more memory.

A year later, the Atlas 960 SuperPod will debut with up to 15,488 Ascend 960 chips, achieving 30 exaflops of computing power and 4,460TB of memory. Xu said the two systems will stay the world’s most potent super nodes, with uses beyond AI in general-purpose computing in China.

Huawei faces Western sanctions limiting access to advanced semiconductor nodes. Xu said assembling less advanced chips into super pods lets Huawei compete with rivals like Nvidia at a system level despite lower individual chip performance.

Over the next three years, Huawei will launch three new Ascend chip series: the 950 line, 950PR and 950DT, the 960, and the 970. The 950PR, optimised for early-stage inference and recommendations, will ship in Q1 2026, while the 950DT with 2Tb/s bandwidth will launch in Q4 2026.

The 960 will double its predecessor’s computing power and memory capacity and arrive in Q4 2027.

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First quantum-AI data centre launched in New York City

Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) and Digital Realty have launched the first quantum-AI data centre in New York City at the JFK10 facility, powered by Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. The project combines superconducting quantum computers with AI supercomputing under one roof.

OQC’s GENESIS quantum computer is the first to be deployed in a New York data centre, designed to support hybrid workloads and enterprise adoption. Future GENESIS systems will ship with Nvidia accelerated computing and CUDA-Q integration as standard.

OQC CEO Gerald Mullally said the centre will drive the AI revolution securely and at scale, strengthening the UK–US technology alliance. Digital Realty CEO Andy Power called it a milestone for making quantum-AI accessible to enterprises and governments.

UK Science Minister Patrick Vallance highlighted the £212 billion economic potential of quantum by 2045, citing applications from drug discovery to clean energy. He said the launch puts British innovation at the heart of next-generation computing.

The centre, embedded in Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL, will support applications in finance, security, and AI, including quantum machine learning and accelerated model training. OQC Chair Jack Boyer said it demonstrates UK–US collaboration in leading frontier technologies.

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