Opinion

Pet Robots vs Robotaxis

Featured, Opinion

What’s at stake:
Never underestimate pet robots. Sure, they’re toys and they’re adorable . But they foreshadow a future in which people need to communicate, interact and establish relationships with machines.

I’ve been back “home” in Japan for less than a week, during which I’ve been repeatedly reminded — again — of this country’s eternal fascination with robots, and with how people here tend to fall in love with anything cute.

I refer, of course, to Nicobo, a cuddly robot developed by Panasonic and released last May.

Goodbye, Intel

Featured, Opinion

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is betting on the future of Intel with some bold moves. He has now been in place long enough – since February 2021 – for shareholders, customers and analysts to start to judge Gelsinger by what he does rather than by what he says, which often sound too optimistic.

Intel Corp.’s announcement that it plans to operate the Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) as a separate business from January 1, 2024 with a view to an IPO within three years, has revealed an asset-sale trend.

Dig Deeper Podcast: Chip Makers Map a Sustainable Future

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The energy-intensive semiconductor industry aims to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050. It must first transform aspirational goals into climate action.

Welcome Back, Intel

Featured, Opinion

By Peter Clarke

Last month. a couple of things happened that provide support to the idea that Intel could catch up with rivals Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics in chip manufacturing technology.

One was the opening of Intel’s Fab34 in Leixlip, Ireland, and the start of mass-production of 4nm chips there. The other was the speculation that TSMC is delaying the ramping of its 2nm manufacturing process in Taiwan until 2026.

Why does it matter: Because much of US foreign and commercial policy depends on the country having a semiconductor technology leader and minimizing dependence on southeast Asia, which it apparently acknowledges as China’s sphere of influence.

A (Very) Brief History of Consciousness

Featured, Opinion

If we understand the mechanism of subjective experience, we could choose, or not, to put it into AI.

Nobody Puts Beijing in a Corner

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Phrases like “decoupling,” “de-risking” and “China for China” – coined and overused in recent commentaries – reveal how Western business leaders’ struggle to come up with China strategies that justify their actions. It’s time to think beyond trade jargons. The business community needs to start articulating how it wants to work with China.

Many executives in the West already know that “decoupling” is simply silly when the foundations of an industry like semiconductors are built on international markets and a global supply chain.

“De-risking” illustrates Western corporations’ current trepidation toward doing business with China. Corporate leaders can’t predict the Chinese Communist Party’s next move, and they worry about fresh sanctions imposed on China by the United States.

AI: Artificial or Alchemical Intelligence?

Featured, Opinion

By David Benjamin

“Reynard affirmed that he had sent her majesty the queen a comb made of panthera bone ‘more lustrous than the rainbow, more odiferous than any perfume, a charm against every ill, a universal panacea.”

— Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, in reference to Hinreck van Alckmer, Reynard the Fox (1498)

According to Greek legend, Panacea, daughter of Aesculapius, god of medicine and healing, had powers to bestow on humanity the cure for everything that ails us. In English, a “panacea” solves everything.

In RISC-V World, Who Has Arm’s Legs?

Featured, Opinion

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
RISC-V’s momentum is established. The question now is who can accelerate the trend by playing the role Arm played in the global semiconductor industry in the early 1990’s.

Now that Arm’s IPO is over, we can breathe easier, look around and ponder who will become the semiconductor IP developer’s successor, this time in the RISC-V market.

Bolaji Ojo stranded at the airport in Lagos at 3:00AM on Monday.

I Became the News, No Thanks to Lufthansa

Featured, Opinion

When airlines break a pledge, passengers suffer. It is worse when the airline chooses to be nonchalant.

Untangling China, Decoding the West’s Response

Featured, Opinion

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
The politics of Chinese technology investments remain nuanced. Western technology companies want a piece of its market but are wary of giving up IP and are even more concerned about the impact of their governments’ growing anti-China policies. But which reality is true: a China filled with minefields for Western technology companies or a merely assertive nation trying to increase its own global economic presence. Figuring out which will determine how the West fares in the world’s second-largest economy.

Gina Raimondo was in China this week, on an inevitable trip, and saying the unavoidable.

Having helped to nurture China into the world’s second-largest economy, the West finds itself unable to take its eyes off or have its hands fully on the communist nation. It can neither be controlled and structured the way America and its allies would like nor exploited for the kind of profits they once dreamed could be gained.