As global competition heats up in the AI sector, an emerging power has now joining the battlefield. Ola, an automotive manufacturer in India, plans to launch the country’s first in-house AI chip by 2026, which is based on ARM architecture, according to a report by Wccftech.

Though there are more details yet to be revealed, the report notes that Ola did highlight its key chip offerings, featuring the Bodhi series, which would be the nation’s first self-developed AI chips. The company’s product lineup also reportedly includes the Sarv-1 cloud-native CPUs and the Ojas edge AI chip.

When asked about the potential foundry partners in the future, Ola’s CEO Bhavish Aggarwal mentioned that the company plans to collaborate with a global tier I or II foundry, likely TSMC or Samsung, according to the report.

Ola’s AI lineup is expected to start with the Bodhi-1 AI chip, which is specifically designed for large-scale LLMs, with a focus on inferencing workloads, Wccftech suggests. Positioned as a low-to-mid-tier offering from Ola, the chip is said to be launched by 2026, followed by a more potent successor, the Bodhi-2, slated to be released in 2028.

According to Wccftech, it is worth noting that Ola also introduced an edge AI chip named Ojas, which is likely to be integrated into Ola’s next-generation electric vehicles. In addition, the Sarv-1, specifically designed for cloud computing, is expected to feature ARM Neoverse N3 cores, though this hasn’t been confirmed yet, the report states.

As the world’s fifth largest economy, India seems to be relatively slow in developing its own AI chips. China, the world’s largest developing country, has quite a long history in developing in-house AI chips.

Chinese tech giant Huawei is said to be testing its latest processor, the “Ascend 910C,” with internet companies and telecom operators recently. Reportedly, the company has informed potential customers that this new chip is comparable to NVIDIA’s H100 GPU, which cannot be directly sold in China.

On the other hand, Baidu’s foray into AI chips can be traced back to as early as 2011. After seven years of development, Baidu officially unveiled its self-developed AI chip, Kunlun 1, in 2018. T-Head, owned by Alibaba, introduced its first high-performance AI inference chip, the HanGuang 800, in September 2019.

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(Photo credit: Krutrim)

On August 15, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced restrictions on the export of the strategic mineral antimony for national security reasons, set to take effect on September 15, 2024. According to sources cited by the Commercial Times, the market price of antimony could skyrocket to USD 30,000 per ton.

Antimony is strategically significant due to its extensive applications in solar photovoltaics, batteries, fireproof materials, military equipment, and even nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, as per data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), China is the world’s largest producer of antimony, with a production of 83,000 tons last year, accounting for 48% of the global supply. Other major producers include Myanmar, with 4,600 tons annually, Turkey with 6,000 tons, and Tajikistan with 21,000 tons.

The report from Asia Financial on August 17 indicated that around 20% of the world’s antimony is used in manufacturing solar photovoltaic glass to enhance the performance of solar cells. Most of the remaining supply is used in lead-acid batteries.

Additionally, antimony has growing strategic importance due to its role as a key material in military equipment such as nuclear weapons, infrared missiles, and night vision devices, as well as a hardening agent for bullets and tanks.

As a result, the global supply of antimony is facing a shortage. Reportedly, since the beginning of this year, the price of this rare metal has already doubled, with current trading prices exceeding USD 22,000 per ton, setting a historic high.

Chetan Soni, president of the UK-based Commodity Research Unit (CRU), stated that given the current historical high prices, China’s recent announcement could further drive up prices. He added that prices might reach USD 30,000 per ton as buyers seek to secure future production or stockpile materials.

Soni believes that if antimony prices rise again, it will increase the Western world’s dependence on China’s critical minerals, including rare earths, gallium, and germanium, which have also faced export restrictions since last year.

Part of the market supply tightness may be due to disruptions in Russian supply, caused by sanctions imposed after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as well as a reduction in domestic production in Russia.

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As per a report from Reuters, South Korea’s SK Telecom-backed AI chip startup Sapeon Korea and KT-invested startup Rebellions have officially announced their merger.

The combined entity is expected to be established by the end of 2024, with the merger projected to create a business valued at over KRW 1 trillion (roughly USD 750 million), hinting at a potential challenge to NVIDIA’s leading position in the AI chip market.

As competition in the AI chip market intensifies, Sapeon and Rebellions have formalized their merger. The merger, which was rumored in June according to the Korean Economic Daily, have now been officially agreed upon, with Rebellions’ co-founder and CEO Sunghyun Park set to lead the executive team of the merged entity.

Sapeon and Rebellions are two South Korean chip startups. Rebellions introduced the ATOM chip last year, Korea’s first NPU designed for large language model (LLM) data centers. Meanwhile, Sapeon launched its next-generation AI chip, the X330, in November, enhancing Korea’s competitiveness in the global AI semiconductor market.

The two companies previously noted that they view the next two to three years as a critical opportunity for South Korea to establish a presence in the global AI semiconductor market. Moreover, they also emphasized their commitment to accelerating the formation of the merged entity to capitalize on this pivotal period.

The report by TheElec, citing industry sources, noted that since SK Group will be the majority shareholder of the merged entity, it may prefer TSMC over Samsung Foundry, given that SK hynix and Samsung are rivals in memory chips. Currently, Sapeon uses TSMC as its foundry, whereas Rebellions collaborates with Samsung Foundry.

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(Photo credit: Rebellions)

As per a report from Economic Daily News, TSMC’s first European 12-inch fab is set to hold its groundbreaking ceremony on August 20. Along with TSMC’s ongoing projects in Japan and the U.S., the investment has amounted to nearly USD 100 billion. Meanwhile, this move is also expected to generate opportunities for supporting Taiwanese contractors.

The new TSMC facility in Dresden, Germany, is anticipated to use 28/22nm planar CMOS and 16/12nm FinFET process, with a monthly production capacity of approximately 40k 12-inch wafers.

Per TSMC’s plan, its fab in Germany will start operation by the end of 2027, with estimated costs exceeding EUR 10 billion (approximately USD 10.8 billion), creating opportunities in plant equipment and engineering sectors.

In response to the demand, Marketech International, a Taiwanese fab tool maker, has already set up offices and accommodations in Dresden in 2023 and has deployed staff there.

Additionally, Topco Scientific, a Taiwanese semiconductor materials distributor, is also said to be planning to establish a presence in Europe, with plans to set up operations in Prague, Czech Republic, about two hours’ drive from Dresden.

On the other hand, TSMC is accelerating the construction of its Kumamoto plant in Japan, with production scheduled to begin by the end of this year. This facility will be the fastest among TSMC’s new overseas fabs to start production. TSMC is also actively advancing the construction of a second Kumamoto plant.

TSMC plans to invest over USD 20 billion in its two Japanese facilities, which are expected to have a combined monthly capacity of over 100k 12-inch wafers. The plants will offer 40nm, 22/28nm, 12/16nm, and 6/7nm process.

Once operational, the Kumamoto plant is anticipated to generate significant opportunities in the semiconductor inspection sector.

MA-tek, a giant in semiconductor inspection and analysis services, is planning to expand its service at its laboratories in Nagoya and Kumamoto, while setting up a third laboratory to fully meet the needs of local semiconductor clients.

As for TSMC’s fab in Arizona, U.S., the company has planned a total capital expenditure exceeding USD 65 billion. Industry sources cited by Economic Daily News have expected that companies like United Integrated Services and Marketech International will continue to benefit from this investment.

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(Photo credit: TSMC)

After forming a new HBM development team within its Device Solutions (DS) Division around July, memory Giant Samsung is now said to have made progress on HBM4, targeting to tape-out the product by the end of this year, a report by TheElec notes. The move is also regarded to be laying the foundation stone for the mass production of its 12-layer HBM4 product by the end of 2025, according to the report.

The report suggests that as the time span between tape-out and finalizing test products might take three to fourth months, Samsung’s HBM4 test products are expected to be released next year at the earliest. Afterwards, Samsung would continue to make improvements until sending samples to key customers.

Samsung, however, declined to comment on its roadmap, according to TheElec.

The report by TheElec further notes that starting from HBM4, Samsung plans to mass-produce the logic die of HBM on its 4nm foundry process. Regarding the memory chip, Samsung is said to adopt the 10nm 6th-generation (1c) DRAM.

Samsung’s major HBM competitor, SK hynix, is reported to enter mass production for its 12-layer HBM4 in the second half of 2025, the report indicates. The company plans to mass-produce the logic die of HBM with TSMC’s 5nm and 12nm processes. As for the memory chip, it is still weighing between 1b DRAM and 1c DRAM.

As Samsung plans to use 1c DRAM in HBM4 core chips, related investments are expected to follow. TrendForce reports that Samsung’s P4L facility will be the key site for expanding memory capacity starting in 2025, starting with NAND production. Equipment installation for DRAM is expected to begin in mid-2025, with mass production of 1c nanometer DRAM slated to commence in 2026.

Samsung’s fifth generation HBM, HBM3e, is still striving on the certification process with NVIDIA. TrendForce notes that as the company is eager to gain higher HBM market share from SK hynix, its 1alpha(1α) capacity has reserved for HBM3e. TrendForce believes that Samsung is going to be a very important supplier on HBM category.

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(Photo credit: Samsung)