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China might win the chip wars after all

China might win the chip wars after all

+ Synthesia goes big

Adam & Matt
June 25, 2024

PRESENTED BY

The Hungarian word for quotation marks is "macskaköröm," which literally translates to "cat claws."

What’s in store:

TikTok’s chip future.
The future of video production is here with Synthesia.
Around the web: Shopify's new AI chatbot "Sidekick" launches in beta to assist merchants with various tasks.
Guidde transforms documentation with the power of AI

Read Time: 5 minutes

TIKTOK

China might win the chip wars after all

ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, is collaborating with U.S. chip designer Broadcom to develop an advanced AI processor.

This move aims to secure a steady supply of high-end chips amidst ongoing U.S.-China tensions.

The 5-nanometre chip, known as an application-specific integrated chip (ASIC), will comply with U.S. export restrictions and will be manufactured by Taiwan's TSMC.

This collaboration is significant as it is one of the first between Chinese and U.S. companies involving advanced 5nm technology since Washington's export controls on cutting-edge semiconductors in 2022.

Here are the latest updates:

ByteDance and Broadcom are developing a 5nm AI processor to comply with U.S. export restrictions.
Manufacturing by TSMC is expected, but not this year.
ByteDance is heavily investing in AI and securing chips from Nvidia and Huawei.

AI chips on the horizon

ByteDance’s partnership with Broadcom, which has been ongoing since at least 2022, aims to reduce procurement costs and ensure a stable chip supply.

However, manufacturing of the new chip is not expected to start this year, with design work still in progress.

ByteDance is heavily investing in AI, including a range of applications from TikTok to a ChatGPT-like chatbot service called Doubao.

To support this, the company has stockpiled Nvidia chips and purchased Huawei's Ascend 910B chips, allocating $2 billion for these purchases last year.

They are also actively recruiting semiconductor talent to bolster their AI capabilities.

China just got the blue shell in Mario Kart.

Can China win the chip wars?

Vote for live results and see results + opinions from yesterday at the bottom of the email.

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On This Day

June 25th Year - 1984 - Prince releases his iconic album "Purple Rain," which became a defining moment in music history and a massive commercial success.

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SYNTHESIA

Synthesia's new AI tools simplified

Synthesia, a British AI startup backed by Nvidia, has unveiled new updates, turning its platform into a comprehensive video production suite.

Synthesia introduced new features allowing users to create Apple-style presentations with AI avatars using just a laptop webcam or phone.

The seven-year-old company aims to become an all-encompassing video production suite for large firms, moving beyond just AI-generated avatars.

Among the updates, Synthesia enables AI avatar creation with webcams or phones, full-body avatars with hands and arms, and a screen recording tool with an AI avatar guide.

A summary of the updates:

Webcam AI Avatars: Create avatars with a webcam or phone.
Full-Body Avatars: Includes hands and arms.
AI Video Assistant: Summarises articles and documents.

What is Synthesia?

Used by nearly half of the Fortune 500, Synthesia creates AI avatars for training videos and promotional material.

Initially targeting Hollywood, it currently focuses on democratising video production.

No studio, no problem

New features include AI-generated avatars from five-minute webcam recordings and voice cloning for multiple languages.

Traditionally, making AI avatars required studio sessions, it’s simplified with the help of the new software.

The company’s full-body avatars can capture hand movements, a challenging aspect for AI.

Synthesia also offers multilingual videos and plans to tailor avatars for different regions.

Their AI video assistant can summarise articles and documents, useful for tasks like HR explanations.

CEO Victor Riparbelli aims to make Synthesia a productivity-focused tool for businesses, similar to Microsoft and Salesforce, offering lasting business value.

Synthesia's updates make it a powerful tool for businesses leveraging AI for video production, training, and communication.

Those Zoom quizzes will never be the same.

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Mindstream Picks

US stocks traded mixed early Monday, with the S&P 500 down, the Nasdaq falling 0.4%, and the Dow rising 0.3%, as the last week of a successful quarter begins.

Apprehension over delayed rate cuts, a stronger DXY, and Bitcoin price softness led to $584 million outflows in crypto investment products.

China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft is returning to Earth with samples from the moon’s far side, expected to arrive on June 25 after a 53-day mission involving lunar landing, sampling, and docking.

A survey by the Game Developer Collective showed that 59% of over 600 developers said the industry is in a bad spot, citing difficult market conditions, layoffs, closures, and financial difficulties.

Don’t Miss - Shopify’s AI chatbot "Sidekick" is launching in beta, providing support to merchants by creating discount codes, generating store reports, and suggesting blog ideas. Shopify also introduced AI tools for product categorization, customer chat replies, and an image generator for iOS and Android apps.