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If you just followed news reports on Ukraine, you might think that the war has settled into a long, grinding and somewhat boring slog. You would be wrong. Things are actually getting more dangerous by the day. For starters, the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious. Take the two high-profile leaks from American officials this past week about U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war: First, The Times disclosed that “the United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado—The U.S. intelligence community asked certain commercial satellite companies for help in the earliest days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their imagery remains vital to countering Russia’s false claims, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Tuesday. But the partnership raises new questions about what protections those firms might be owed if their actions make them a target. “Early on, we also asked a few commercial companies….and those of you who helped know who you are, helped us to rapidly make available imagery like the buildup that was happening around Ukraine’s borders to...

Ukraine’s defense intelligence ministry has released information on over 600 alleged Russian spies based in Europe, Fox News reported. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s intelligence arm released the "list of employees of the FSB of the Russian Federation registered at the address: Moscow, St. Bolshaya Lubyanka" on Monday. The list in Russian contains names, phone numbers, passport numbers, license plate numbers and certain financial details for 620 Russian citizens it alleges are spies. There are also home addresses listed. According to The Telegraph, MI6’s former head Sir John Sawers said that only “10 percent” of Russia’s European spy operations are...

Intel has confirmed plans to build a semiconductor plant in Germany as part of an investment of up to €80 billion ($88 billion) in Europe over the next decade. The initial outlay for the facility in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, is €17 billion ($19 billion). The so-called “mega-site” will actually comprise two factories. Planning will start right away with construction expected to get under way in the first half of next year, as long as Intel gets the thumbs up from the European Commission. Production should commence at what Intel is calling “Silicon Junction” in 2027. As such, the...

Score another notable win for chip giant AMD (AMD) against its heated rival Intel. AMD's market cap currently stands at $188 billion after shares rose nearly 2% in Tuesday's session. Intel's market cap is $182 billion. That marks the second time in a week AMD's market value has climbed above Intel — the first time it happened was a week ago. Followers of this battle may not be surprised to see this one happen (and seeing it continue from here) for several reasons. First, AMD has been winning the battle on Wall Street for sexier investment thesis. AMD last week...

Welcome to the Offical Monkey Werx Channel - our weekly shows consist of Overwatch SITREPS where we will look at aircraft activity around the world, the Monkey Minute, where we will take a quick look at biblical news, and every two weeks, the Watchman Hour, where we will be discussing biblical topics.

Intel Corporation announced Friday that it is investing $20 billion to build two new “leading-edge” chip factories in Ohio.“The investment will help boost production to meet the surging demand for advanced semiconductors, powering a new generation of innovative products from Intel and serving the needs of foundry customers as part of the company’s IDM 2.0 strategy,” the company said in a statement.IDM 2.0 is a new integrated device manufacturing model, which Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced on March 23, 2021.The move is part of Gelsinger’s strategy to restore Intel’s dominance in chip making and reduce America’s reliance on Asian manufacturing...

A Silicon Valley tech giant is set to announce an investment of $20 billion for a chip factory in Columbus, Ohio, a locale strong on manufacturing with data centers for Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Intel's semiconductor factory would employ 3,000 workers in Licking County, in addition to thousands of construction workers and Intel suppliers locating to the area, a source told The Columbus Dispatch.

U.S. semiconductor chip company Intel has scrubbed all references to Xinjiang from an open letter on its website that created a backlash from China late last year. Last month, Intel sent an open letter to its suppliers urging them to avoid sourcing materials from the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where the Communist Chinese government forces religious minorities into labor camps. The Wall Street Journal at the time reported that Intel sent the letter to its global suppliers calling on them to avoid the region, stating that “multiple governments have imposed restrictions on products sourced from the Xinjiang region. Therefore, Intel...

Several observers have pointed out the terrible optics and even worse legal and cultural implications of the FBI’s raids earlier this month on three undercover journalists’ homes. Since the reporters’ organization, Project Veritas, is a political opponent of the American regime, the raids echo government behavior in unfree countries such as Russia, China, and Turkey.Yet there’s another, less remarked, aspect to this story. It’s the raids’ effect of protecting a longtime, top-tier deep state information operations partner, The New York Times.Project Veritas is a threat to The New York Times, not only in some of its undercover reporting about Times...

It appears that the U.S. preventing companies like Intel from expanding their chipmaking operations in China is having an affect on other chipmakers globally. That’s because South Korea’s SK Hynix, a top supplier of memory chips globally, has halted the installation of new production equipment in China as a result of American trade policies. The company was planning on bringing extreme-ultraviolet lithography equipment to its Jiangsu Province plant, which makes about 40% of its DRAM chips, according to Nikkei. But the company put a halt to the plans as a result of American measures that have been put in place...

Days ago we wrote about how VC companies in the U.S. were making significant investments in Chinese semiconductor companies. Shortly thereafter, it was reported that the White House had rejected a plan by Intel to bolster their chip production capacity in China, according to Bloomberg. Intel had proposed “using a factory in Chengdu, China, to manufacture silicon wafers,” the report said. It could have been online by 2022, but the White House, “strongly discouraged” the move. Intel likely had to listen since the company is seeking government support in helping expand its capacity for manufacturing semis in the U.S. Intel...

News AnalysisMajor U.S. firms, including Intel and Sequoia Capital, have maintained financial and research ties with a Chinese company known to provide artificial intelligence to Beijing’s military, according to a new report by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) at Georgetown University.4Paradigm, a major enterprise AI company headquartered in Beijing, was awarded a contract to provide China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.Its contract was for a “battalion and company command decision-making model and human-machine teaming software,” according to the report, which did not specify the date of the contact.Meanwhile, 4Paradigm has also...

Microsoft recently announced Windows 11 and revealed the system requirements necessary to formally install the new operating system using Windows Update, media creation tools, and update assistants. According to Microsoft's supporting documents and the spokesperson's statement, the device must have a newer processor, TPM 2.0 encryption chip, and SecureBoot enabled to fully run the operating system. Microsoft is considering reducing processor requirements for computers running Windows 11 TPM 2.0 has been included in many devices shipped in the past few years, but it is disabled by default. Users can enable TPM 2.0 in the BIOS, or bypass this restriction by...

The boss of Intel says the US chipmaker is no longer considering building a factory in the UK because of Brexit. Pat Gelsinger told the BBC that before the UK left the EU, the country "would have been a site that we would have considered". But he added: "Post-Brexit... we're looking at EU countries and getting support from the EU". Intel wants to boost its output amid a global chip shortage that has hit the supply of cars and other goods. The firm - which is one of the world's largest makers of semiconductors - says the crisis has shown...

Industry leaders called for 'urgent action' after the National Grid warned electricity supplies would be 'tight'.. ... Latest sign of a grim winter outlook for UK with economy clobbered by rising inflation and supply chain issues.. The supply of electricity to Britain this winter will be 'tight' and there is a greater risk of blackouts, the National Grid warned today - as soaring energy prices leave families facing sky- high bills. ... Gas is in high demand due to the reopening of the global economy, colder temperatures, and reduced wind and solar output due to unfavourable conditions. ... Omni Energy...

Intel .. on Friday broke ground on two new factories in Arizona as part of its turnaround plan to become a major manufacturer of chips for outside customers. The $20 billion plants - dubbed Fab 52 and Fab 62 - will bring the total number of Intel factories at its campus in Chandler, Arizona, to six. They will house Intel's most advanced chipmaking technology and play a central role in the Santa Clara, California-based company's effort to regain its lead in making the smallest, fastest chips by 2025, after having fallen behind rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ... deepening its manufacturing...

The great computer chip shortage of 2021 will likely get worse before it gets better. This conclusion was reached following brief study and anecdotal review. Moreover, while COVID lockdowns may have initially triggered the shortage, several decades of shortsighted decisions and simmering geopolitical tensions make it much more than a matter of fixing a few broken links in the supply chain. Here’s why… The world’s top two leading chip companies are Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. These two Asian firms, combined, control more than 70 percent of the semiconductor manufacturing market. The U.S., which was once a leader,...

snipPresident Biden (snip) “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war,” the president declared from the White House’s ornate East Room on July 8. A few days later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave a less rosy assurance, but disputed claims a Taliban takeover was inevitable. “A negative outcome – a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan – is not a foregone conclusion," Army Gen. Mark Milley told reporters. “…I don’t think an end game is yet written.” But inside U.S. intelligence agencies, the Pentagon...

In 1965, Gordon Moore published a short informal paper, Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. In it, he noted [PDF] that in three years, the optimal cost per component on a chip had dropped by a factor of 10, while the optimal number had increased by the same factor, from 10 to 100. Based on not much more but these few data points and his knowledge of silicon chip development – he was head of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductors, the company that was to seed Silicon Valley – he said that for the next decade, component counts by area could...