Innovations That Matter - To AI-Driven Industries
Find out how the National University of Singapore is pushing the frontiers of technology and grooming a new generation to lead the AI age.
Innovations That Matter
About the show:
What are the cutting-edge innovations emerging from the National University of Singapore that are transforming the nation and potentially the world? Find out in this five-part series that showcases how NUS' faculty, researchers and students are tackling pressing challenges such as ageing and sustainability, putting AI to work in the real world, nurturing startups and uplifting communities in and beyond Singapore.
Brought to you by the National University of Singapore.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
41 minutes ago
- CNA
Nvidia, AMD to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US: Report
Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15 per cent of their revenues from chip sales in China, under an arrangement to obtain export licenses for the semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday (Aug 10). The revenue share applies to Nvidia's H20 chips and AMD's MI308 chips, the report said, citing a US official, noting that the Trump administration had yet to determine how to use the money. The chipmakers agreed to the arrangement as a condition for obtaining export licences for the Chinese market that were granted last week, FT reported. Nvidia follows rules the US government sets for its participation in worldwide markets, an Nvidia spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement. "While we haven't shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide." AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Commerce Department started issuing licenses to Nvidia to export its H20 chips to China last week, removing a significant hurdle to the artificial intelligence bellwether's access to a key market. The US last month reversed an April ban on the sale of the H20 chip to China. The company had tailored the microprocessor specially to the Chinese market
CNA
41 minutes ago
- CNA
Exclusive-SoftBank selects banks for US IPO of payments app PayPay, sources say
SoftBank has selected investment banks to help organize a potential initial public offering in the United States for its Japanese payments app operator PayPay, according to two people familiar with the matter. The banks leading preparations for the listing are Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Mizuho Financial Group and Morgan Stanley, the sources said. The PayPay offering may raise more than $2 billion from investors when it takes place, which the sources said could be as soon as the final quarter of this year. The sources declined to be named as the information is not public and cautioned that factors including timing and the amount the IPO could raise are subject to market conditions. SoftBank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Mizuho, and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. PayPay played a role in encouraging Japanese consumers to move away from a long-standing preference for cash by offering rebates on payments through its mobile app. It also offers financial services including banking and credit cards. Reuters reported two years ago that SoftBank was considering a U.S. listing for PayPay, with the conglomerate saying earlier this year it wanted to IPO the business. Should it happen, it will be the first U.S. listing of a SoftBank majority investment since the blockbuster IPO of Arm Holdings. SoftBank took the chip designer public in 2023 at a valuation of $54.5 billion, which has subsequently increased to today's market capitalization of more than $145 billion. U.S. IPO activity has gained momentum in a long-awaited rebound, supported by strong tech earnings and signs of progress in trade negotiations that have helped restore investor confidence. The wave of solid market debuts marks a reversal from earlier this year, when uncertainty over President Donald Trump's tariff policies stalled new listings. PayPay's ownership is split between a number of SoftBank entities: wireless carrier SoftBank Corp, the Vision Fund investment arm, and internet business LY Corp, which is a joint venture between SoftBank and Naver Corp.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
Exclusive-SK Hynix expects AI memory market to grow 30% a year to 2030
SEOUL/SAN FRANCISCO :South Korea's SK Hynix forecasts that the market for a specialized form of memory chip designed for artificial intelligence will grow 30 per cent a year until 2030, a senior executive said in an interview with Reuters. The upbeat projection for global growth in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for use in AI brushes off concern over rising price pressures in a sector that for decades has been treated like commodities such as oil or coal. "AI demand from the end user is pretty much, very firm and strong," said SK Hynix's Choi Joon-yong, the head of HBM business planning at SK Hynix. The billions of dollars in AI capital spending that cloud computing companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet's Google are projecting will likely be revised upwards in the future, which would be "positive" for the HBM market, Choi said. The relationship between AI build-outs and HBM purchases is "very straightforward" and there is a correlation between the two, Choi said. SK Hynix's projections are conservative and include constraints such as available energy, he said. But the memory business is undergoing a significant strategic change during this period as well. HBM - a type of dynamic random access memory or DRAM standard first produced in 2013 - involves stacking chips vertically to save space and reduce power consumption, helping to process the large volumes of data generated by complex AI applications. SK Hynix expects this market for custom HBM to grow to tens of billions of dollars by 2030, Choi said. Due to technological changes in the way SK Hynix and rivals such as Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics build next-generation HBM4, their products include a customer-specific logic die, or "base die", that helps manage the memory. That means it is no longer possible to easily replace a rival's memory product with a nearly identical chip or product. Part of SK Hynix's optimism for future HBM market growth includes the likelihood that customers will want even further customisation than what SK Hynix already does, Choi said. At the moment it is mostly larger customers such as Nvidia that receive individual customisation, while smaller clients get a traditional one-size-fits-all approach. "Each customer has different taste," Choi said, adding that some want specific performance or power characteristics. SK Hynix is currently the main HBM supplier to Nvidia, although Samsung and Micron supply it with smaller volumes. Last week, Samsung cautioned during its earnings conference call that current generation HBM3E supply would likely outpace demand growth in the near term, a shift that could weigh on prices. "We are confident to provide, to make the right competitive product to the customers," Choi said. 100 per cent TARIFFS U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States would impose a tariff of about 100 per cent on semiconductor chips imported from countries not producing in America or planning to do so. Choi declined to comment on the tariffs. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office the new tariff rate would apply to "all chips and semiconductors coming into the United States," but would not apply to companies that were already manufacturing in the United States or had made a commitment to do so. Trump's comments were not a formal tariff announcement, and the president offered no further specifics. South Korea's top trade envoy Yeo Han-koo said on Thursday that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix would not be subject to the 100 per cent tariffs on chips if they were implemented. Samsung has invested in two chip fabrication plants in Austin and Taylor, Texas, and SK Hynix has announced plans to build an advanced chip packaging plant and an artificial intelligence research and development facility in Indiana. South Korea's chip exports to the United States were valued at $10.7 billion last year, accounting for 7.5 per cent of its total chip exports. Some HBM chips are exported to Taiwan for packaging, accounting for 18 per cent of South Korea's chip exports in 2024, a 127 per cent increase from the previous year.
