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Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence
South Korea unveils US$576bn AI chip plan
South Korea has unveiled more than US$576 billion (A$834.8 billion) worth of investments in artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing, with President Lee Jae Myung outlining an ambitious strategy to strengthen the nation's leadership in advanced chips while expanding industrial development beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. The announcement, made on Monday, represents Lee's most significant policy initiative to date aimed at combining South Korea's AI and semiconductor ambitions with his pledge to reduce regional economic disparities and revitalise areas outside the capital. Lee was joined by the heads of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world's two largest memory chip manufacturers, during the televised announcement. “We must secure the core elements of AI faster than any other country,” the president said. “Semiconductors, physical AI, and AI data centres are the triple axis for our great leap forward.” Under the plan, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, together with their suppliers, will invest 800 trillion won (US$517.87 billion) to construct two new semiconductor fabrication plants each in South Korea's southwestern region. In addition, Lee said Gwangju and South Jeolla province will contribu
Artificial Intelligence
Google caps Meta's access to Gemini amid compute shortage
Meta Platforms’ access to Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) models has reportedly been restricted due to limits on computing capacity. Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, placed a limit on Meta’s access after the social media company, which owns Facebook, sought more computing capacity than Google could provide, according to a story in the Financial Times (FT) newspaper. Although other Google clients had also been affected, the impact on Meta was greater because of its exceptionally high demand for Google’s models, the FT wrote. Meta had encouraged employees to use AI resources more efficiently as the shortfall disrupted and delayed some of its internal AI projects. “The decision by Google to cap a large customer’s access to its models offers a rare glimpse into the infrastructure pressures and bottlenecks building across the AI industry,” the FT wrote. “Despite spending tens of billions of dollars on chips, data centres and power, even the largest tech companies are struggling to secure enough computing power to support surging demand for advanced models and AI services.” Google and Meta declined to comment, according to media reports, including from Reuters, which noted it could not independently verify
Artificial Intelligence
Onsemi gets physical with US$7bn Synaptics acquisition
ON Semiconductor Corp (onsemi) has agreed to buy fellow semiconductor company Synaptics for about US$7 billion (A$10.2 billion) as it seeks to expand beyond power and sensing technologies into artificial intelligence-powered (AI) systems. The United States-based company will offer 1.35 of its shares for each Synaptics share, representing a 19% premium to the volume-weighted average closing prices of onsemi and Synaptics over the last 10 trading days. Onsemi said Synaptics’s AI compute platform, human-machine interface technology, and connectivity solutions would help it meet demand for increasingly capable AI solutions that can interact with the physical world. The combined platform was intended to position onsemi at the centre of so-called physical AI, which refers to AI embedded in devices and machines, with the potential to expand onsemi’s total addressable market by $30 billion to $243 billion by 2030. “By adding Synaptics’ differentiated Edge AI compute franchise and strong portfolio of human-machine interface and wireless connectivity solutions, onsemi is expected to extend its capabilities beyond power and sensing to intelligent systems, delivering greater value to a broad range of end markets,” the companies s
Artificial Intelligence
Quarterly result and outlook pumps up Micron stock
Micron Technology stock soared after it reported a record-breaking financial performance in the third quarter of the 2026 financial year (Q3 FY26), powered by surging demand for memory chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Micron shares (NASDAQ: MU) leapt $164.39 (15.69%) to $1,212.99 in after-hours trading following the release of the results, which included forecasts of quarterly profit and revenue well above expectations. They had earlier closed $3.26 (1.31%) down at $1,048.51, capitalising the company at $1.18 trillion (A$1.71 trillion) in regular trading on Wednesday (Thursday AEST). The U.S. computer chip maker said net income was $28.243 billion in the three months ended 28 May 2026, 1400% more than $1.885 billion in the previous corresponding period (pcp) and 104% more than $13.785 billion in the second quarter. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) soared 1418% to $25.67 on revenue, which was 346% higher at $41.456 billion, both compared with the pcp. For the first nine months of the FY26 year, net income increased 786% to $47.268 billion, and diluted EPS leapt 772% to $41.40 on revenue, which was 203% higher at $78.959 billion. The company said net income was $28.243 billion in the three
Artificial Intelligence
Compute Economy Pt 3: The circle and the bottleneck
Artificial intelligence's giants are funding each other and queuing to tap the public ledger, three of them floating inside a single year. Strip away the fluff and the glaring constraint isn't working capital - it's power. SpaceX currently has the headlines, but its float onto United States markets is only the first of three - each likely in the trillions of dollars. Anthropic lodged confidential IPO paperwork on 1 June, and OpenAI followed a week later, each chasing a valuation near or above a trillion dollars, each leaning on the same two banks - Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Behind the listings runs a stranger arrangement, where a small group of firms keep paying one another to build the same thing. NVIDIA backs the AI labs, the labs commit hundreds of billions to the cloud providers, and the clouds spend it straight back on NVIDIA chips. Analysts now tally more than US$800 billion sitting inside that loop, which is why the question beneath every float is whether this is demand or the same money going round in a circle. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta together plan around $725 billion of capex in 2026, most of it on data-centre hardware. The trouble is that the spending runs well ahead of the revenue

Technology

Artificial Intelligence

South Korea unveils US$576bn AI chip plan

Google caps Meta's access to Gemini amid compute shortage

Onsemi gets physical with US$7bn Synaptics acquisition

Quarterly result and outlook pumps up Micron stock

Compute Economy Pt 3: The circle and the bottleneck

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