In advance of Intel's first event dedicated to their Foundry business, I had the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with CEO Pat Gelsinger and talk about the company's strategic goals.
Recap: The Biden Administration conceived the CHIPS and Science Act as a far-reaching plan to rebuild the US microchip industry essentially from scratch. The plan includes roughly $280 billion in public subsidies to boost domestic research and semiconductor manufacturing, with public and private sectors working together towards a common goal.
Some would argue that AI is a fad, the next bubble waiting to burst
Editor's take: Like almost everyone in tech today, we have spent the past year trying to wrap our heads around "AI". What it is, how it works, and what it means for the industry. We are not sure that we have any good answers, but a few things have been clear. Maybe AGI (artificial general intelligence) will emerge, or we'll see some other major AI breakthrough, but focusing too much on those risks could be overlooking the very real – but also very mundane – improvements that transformer networks are already delivering.
Qualcomm does indeed have 50,000-ish employees, double those of Nvidia and AMD
Why it matters: After looking at revenue and operating income per employee for big semiconductor companies, we thought that was a fun exercise, so we have looked at another dozen tech companies in various sectors. Broadcom and Apple are in a league of their own – it is good to have a software or licensing business.