By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake: President Trump is emasculating the leadership of America’s technology companies, meddling so deeply in their strategic management and sales generation efforts that they might as well be taking detailed instructions from the White House. Trump is bending trade laws to suit his freewheeling ways, acts unmatched by any of his predecessors as president. The technology industry must find ways to curb this intrusion.  

Donald Trump is president of the United States, a noteworthy achievement. In the political world. The presidency does not confer entrepreneurial experience or sagacity, however. By slapping tariffs on trading partners, and threatening to jack up interest on their operations or – in the case of Intel Corp. asking its CEO to resign – Trump is rewriting the duties and curbing the powers of technology companies’ OEMs or chief decision makers, transmitting the view that they are lining up for instructions at the White House.

The American president does not have Jensen Huang’s business pedigree. His entrepreneurial history rests on a far lower rung of the business ladder compared with the experiences of Huang, CEO of Nvidia, Lisa Su (CEO at AMD), and Lip-Bu Tan, (CEO of Intel Corp. Yet, Mr. Trump has inserted himself with reckless naivety into how these companies are managed. His actions do not bode well for the companies he has wrestled power from and, by extension, the rest of the technology world.

Read More »American Tech CEOs are being Neutered

By Bolaji Ojo

The story of Intel Corp. is one of American ingenuity sullied by a stubborn combination of naivety and obtuseness at the top. The company’s troubles didn’t emerge out of nowhere. The coincidence brewed of technology and innovations shifts aren’t at play here. Rather, Intel is in the muck it has sunk into today because it couldn’t escape its shiny legacy.

While Craig Barrett, Intel’s CEO from 1998 to 2005 and chairman through 2009, is often lauded for presiding over strong profits and technological advances, it’s time to confront the inconvenient truth: Barrett cannot wash his hands of the mess that Intel has now become. He helped lay its foundations, missed seismic shifts in the semiconductor industry, and imposed strategic inertia that successive CEOs failed to overcome.

Barrett’s tenure coincided with extraordinary shifts in the global electronics landscape, the very sort that demands radical leadership. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the rise of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reshaped the competitive terrain, as it steadily built an empire in contract chipmaking (foundry services) for a new wave of fabless semiconductor companies. Meanwhile, the mainstreaming of mobile devices signaled the decline of the personal computer as the centerpiece of consumer electronics.

Yet, instead of steering Intel towards these growing markets, Barrett and his lieutenants doubled down on PC-centric strategies. Intel’s world-class fabrication facilities, which were once envied by rivals for their scale and capability, remained closed off to outsiders. The “Intel Inside” mantra was a badge of pride, but also a mask for missed opportunities. Intel made massive investments in communications businesses, running into billions of dollars, but failed to turn these into outstanding successes or footholds in fast-growing markets.

Read More »Craig Barrett’s Intel Faux Pas

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake: Artificial Intelligence has raised semiconductors to a height unimagined only a few years ago, but as chipmakers rocket to the top of the global equity markets, the burning questions come up: How long will this stratospheric rise continue; what happens when demand for AI chips stalls and what should semiconductor suppliers do to stay relevant in the new economy?

Nvidia Corp.’s drastic rise to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company is emblematic of a seismic shift: AI chips have ascended to the position of “the new oil,” powering a sprawling ecosystem of generative AI, big data analytics, and automation. But the questions gnawing at everyone aren’t being answered now because most people don’t yet want to examine how long this AI-fueled semiconductor surge will last, the extent of changes taking place in the market’s trajectory, and what could trigger a change in direction.

Many semiconductor industry executives appear ready to weigh in on how their companies are reshaping the dynamics of the global economy, though. At Nvidia’s latest developers’ conference, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO, addressed thousands of developers and industry leaders on the gravity of what his company helped catalyze.

“We are witnessing the dawn of a new industrial revolution,” Huang said. “an AI-driven era that’s being built on silicon.” That’s difficult to dispute. Today, Nvidia is not just a tech giant. It is the giant everyone must beat to stand out. With a market capitalization that has soared past Apple’s and Microsoft’s, the firm now stands as the world’s most valuable public company, its fortunes singularly tied to the voracious appetite for artificial intelligence chips.

Yet, the questions about AI’s validity and future keep coming up. How long will the insatiable demand for AI chips last? Could we be overestimating AI’s transformative power, or, conversely, underestimating the deep dependence the global economy is developing on its silicon backbone?

Read More »AI is Nowhere Near its Zenith, but Fears Persist

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake: The stakes for power semiconductor makers in the Edge AI market are immense, encompassing billions of dollars in potential revenue, leadership in technological innovation, and a pivotal role in shaping the future of intelligent, energy-efficient devices. Those who can deliver the most advanced, dependable, and sustainable solutions stand to define the next era of electronics.

Artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved from a futuristic concept to a transformative force reshaping every sector of the global economy. But while much of the early excitement around AI centered on massive data centers and cloud-based supercomputers, the focus in recent years has shifted toward the “edge,” the network’s frontier, where data is generated and decisions must be made instantly.

Edge AI, which refers to the deployment of AI models on local devices rather than in distant clouds, is favored to drive everything from smart cameras and autonomous vehicles to industrial robots and wearable health monitors. As the intelligence of these devices grows, however, so too does the complexity of their power requirements. The race is on among semiconductor manufacturers, device makers, and system integrators to deliver energy-efficient, high-performance solutions that will define the next era of intelligent technology.

Read More »Edge AI Hangs on Power: Can Chipmakers Meet Up?

Three companies currently dominate the EDA world, but some startups armed with AI are pushing in, creating unprecedented opportunities to challenge the established order.

By Bolaji Ojo

To Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang, all his company needs to wallop Chinese AI competitors and remain dominant in the communist nation is for America to remove restrictions on the shipment of advanced technologies to China.

He is wrong. Current American sales policy is not the biggest obstacle to the growth of Nvidia’s market share in China. Although Washington has slapped repeated restrictions on the export of advanced technologies to many competing nations, including China, the mere lifting of these sanctions will only exacerbate the challenges facing foreign tech companies in the country.

A deep dive into the dynamics of global commerce, military and geopolitical rivalries among the world’s leading national players will reveal a more complex portrait than can be explained by the simple narratives emerging from the current focus by analysts, industry executives and observers on export restrictions, tariffs and the imposition of stringent rules and regulations.

Read More »Nvidia Set to Step Into China’s Tech-Transfer Trap

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake: GlobalFoundries has elevated its status as a major foundry by agreeing to acquire MIPS, buying out its investors. However, the move also complicates the foundry’s business model at a time when RISC-V licensing is struggling in an Arm- and AI-dominated market.

GlobalFoundries Inc. has agreed to buy San Jose, Calif.-based semiconductor IP vendor MIPS Tech LLC and a first reaction might be: “Why?”

The reasoning behind the deal does not seem straightforward and it is hard to assess without knowing the agreed price. But it does signify that with a semiconductor industry driven to an inflection point by AI, there is scope to re-evaluate business models, values, and opportunities.

That said, the deal has not come completely out of left field. MIPS has been aligned with GlobalFoundries for some time. GlobalFoundries has adopted and used MIPS’ processor cores’ manufacturing processes in its business, including in the industrial and automotive markets.

But is the agreed acquisition, which is due to close in the current half of the year, subject to customary cond[itions, a sign of broken business models or distress at one or both parties?

Read More »GlobalFoundries Deepens the Foundry-IP Conundrum with MIPS Deal