Welcome to our weekly briefing on R&D headlines shaping technology, energy, manufacturing, and more. In this edition, we continue to explore how the Chinese startup DeepSeek is potentially rewriting AI training assumptions, the potential ripple effects on global energy demand, new tariffs upending automotive supply chains, plus highlights from the Idaho National Laboratory, Procter &…
This week in AI research: TSMC’s restrictions on AI chip sales to China escalate tech tensions
The US-China tech war is escalating on the silicon front. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s top chipmaker, will halt production of specific AI chips for Chinese customers, complying with intensifying U.S. efforts to restrict China’s access to silicon to drive its own AI research. This move, effective Monday, throws another wrench into the…
Google and Wiz end $23B acquisition talks, while First Solar to power up Ohio with $500M R&D Hub
First Solar, Tempe, Arizona, recently commissioned what it dubs ‘the largest thin-film R&D center in the Western Hemisphere.’ The company — the U.S.’s largest solar panel manufacturer — has sited its Jim Nolan Center for Solar Innovation in Lake Township, Ohio, which is just south of Akron. The 1.3-million-ft² facility includes a pilot manufacturing line…