Gadgets
Apple Supplier TSMC Says Worldwide Chip Shortage Will Continue in 2022
The world’s biggest contract chipmaker said it is expanding capacity and working to keep pricing reasonable.
“We have acquired land and equipment, and started the construction of new facilities. We are hiring thousands of employees and expanding our capacity at multiple sites,” Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei told an online earnings briefing.
The chip shortage is going to take “a couple of years” to abate, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told the Washington Post on Wednesday.
TSMC’s comments come after the firm reported a 19.4 percent rise in first-quarter profit, beating market expectations, on strong chip demand amid a global shift to home working.
TSMC, whose clients include Apple and Qualcomm, had already flagged “multiple years of growth opportunities” as the COVID-19 pandemic fuelled demand for advanced chips to power devices such as smartphones and laptops.
Its business was boosted by the chip shortage that initially forced automakers to cut production, but is now also hurting manufacturers of smartphones, laptops, and even appliances.
On Thursday, TSMC said it expects the chip shortage for its auto clients to be greatly reduced from the next quarter.
TSMC’s net profit for January-March hit $4.93 billion (roughly Rs.36,800 crores), versus the $4.72 billion (roughly Rs. 35,230 crores) average of 22 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
Revenue rose 25.4 percent to a record $12.92 billion (roughly Rs. 96,440 crores), in line with the company’s earlier estimated range of $12.7 billion (roughly Rs. 94,800 crores) to $13 billion (roughly Rs. 97,000 crores).
The firm forecast second-quarter revenue would be in a range of $12.9 billion (roughly Rs. 96,300 crores) to $13.2 billion (roughly Rs. 98,500 crores), compared with $10.38 billion (roughly Rs. 77,500 crores) in the same period a year earlier. It also lifted its revenue growth forecast for 2021 to about 20 percent, versus an earlier forecast of a mid-teens percentage.
TSMC said this month it plans to invest $100 billion (roughly Rs. 7.46 lakh crores) over the next three years to increase capacity at its plants, days after Intel Corp announced a $20 billion(1.49 lakh crores) plan to expand its advanced chip-making capacity.
Wei said the massive investment plan was driven by “stronger engagement with more customers” on the company’s most advanced 5-nanometer node technology as well as its upcoming 3-nanometer node, which is scheduled to enter trial production later this year.
The company also increased capital spending on the production and development of advanced chips to about $30 billion this year, up from a range of $25 billion (roughly Rs.1.87 lakh crores) to $28 billion (roughly Rs. 2 lakh crores) it forecast in January.
Wei said TSMC is seeing its clients preparing for “a higher level of inventory” to ensure supply stability due to uncertainties from geopolitics and the pandemic. As a result, he said, the company’s capacity will remain “tight” throughout the year.
Analysts are bullish about the company’s massive expansion plan, expecting global demand for advanced chips to surge as fifth-generation telecommunications (5G) technology and artificial intelligence applications are adopted more widely.
TSMC shares have risen about 16 percent so far this year and have more than doubled over the past year, giving TSMC a market value of $558 billion (roughly Rs. 41 lakh crores), more than twice that of Intel’s and higher than that of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
The stock rose 1.14 percent on Thursday, compared with 1.25 percent for the benchmark index.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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