News

Chips and processor hardware

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Qualcomm announces Nuvia acquisition plan

  Mobile chip giant makes strategic acquisition to augment technology roadmap to redefine compute performance for next-generation devices

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Competition and Markets Authority kicks off Nvidia/Arm investigation

  In September, Arm and Nvidia announced a £31bn merger. Will Arm chip design remain free from Nvidia’s influence?

• January 05, 2021 05 Jan'21

  AI advancement: Mimicking decision-making

  In The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger is transported back to 1984. If Arnie had to rely on cloud connectivity, he’d still be walking around naked

• December 13, 2020 13 Dec'20

  Singapore trials beacons to bolster police operations

  Police beacons equipped with video cameras, sirens, floodlights and speakers are being deployed at two parks to improve public safety in a year-long trial

• December 04, 2020 04 Dec'20

  Atos develops Q-Score benchmark for quantum computing

  HPC will outpace quantum computer performance for a few years, but Atos believes businesses need a quantum computing strategy

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Dangerous Trickbot evolves to target UEFI/BIOS firmware

  Dubbed Trickboot by researchers, Trickbot’s new features enable malicious actors to read, write or even erase UEFI/BIOS firmware

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  How IoT keeps water flowing in rural communities

  Non-profit organisation Charity: water has built an internet-of-things device packed with sensors to keep wells in remote parts of Africa and Asia flowing with clean water

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Intel and AMD processors affected by another side-channel exploit

  Two years after Spectre and Meltdown, the x86 processor faces another side-channel exploit – only this time, it is based on sensing temperature

• November 02, 2020 02 Nov'20

  HPE to build new Pawsey supercomputers

  Hewlett-Packard Enterprise has snagged a A$48m deal to deliver a supercomputer for Australia’s Pawsey Supercomputing Centre

• October 07, 2020 07 Oct'20

  Nvidia reveals its plans for Arm

  Nvidia intends to acquire Arm for £31bn, as part of its plan to “create the computing company for the age of AI”

• September 30, 2020 30 Sep'20

  Quantum is years away, but business case can be made today

  Business leaders are being urged to start thinking about how their organisations could solve complex problems with quantum technology

• September 16, 2020 16 Sep'20

  IBM targets Goldeneye to keep its qubits chilled

  IBM has ambitions to build a million-plus quantum computer. To get there, it is building a fridge bigger than anything commercially available

• September 14, 2020 14 Sep'20

  Can Nvidia expand software business through £31bn Arm deal?

  Nvidia is to buy rival chip designer Arm for £31bn in a deal it hopes will put it at the forefront of artificial intelligence for edge computing

• September 08, 2020 08 Sep'20

  How low-cost computing gets kids into tech

  We speak to a teenager about the joys of programming a Raspberry Pi and the startup he has formed around a Pi-based medical device

• August 26, 2020 26 Aug'20

  HPE sees IT spending increase – expect server prices to rise

  Organisations are buying more tech to keep operations running, but DRAM shortages will lead to server price increases

• August 25, 2020 25 Aug'20

  My first computer: Making the leap into an IT career

  The IT sector has always struggled to attract enough young talent from different backgrounds. We look at how people gained their first tech experience

• August 25, 2020 25 Aug'20

  Intel’s DAOS tops the IO500 speed challenge for HPC storage

  Following on from Lustre, Intel’s DAOS is an object storage-based system with that is designed specifically for use with Optane for metadata and SSD for bulk storage in HPC environments

• August 20, 2020 20 Aug'20

  First computers that led to a career in IT

  The UK’s GCSE results show a strong pass rate in STEM subjects, which is good news for the IT industry. We find out how Computer Weekly readers got into IT

• August 05, 2020 05 Aug'20

  Atos signs £5m supercomputing deal to support Oxford University-led AI research push

  University-led push to accelerate the pace of machine learning and artificial intelligence research in UK enters new phase with the deployment of a second supercomputer

• July 22, 2020 22 Jul'20

  Inside Intel’s transition into an enterprise tech company

  Computing giant Intel is pushing deeper into the enterprise with investments in data-centric and emerging technologies along with partnerships with local firms to develop new solutions

• July 15, 2020 15 Jul'20

  NUS develops e-skin system in neuromorphic computing breakthrough

  The National University of Singapore has developed an electronic skin system that could give robots and prosthetic devices a sense of touch

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Lenovo, top-of-the-world Chinese supercomputer supplier, sweeps all markets

  Supercomputers are not just about computing power, they are a symbol of political ambition. Chinese supercomputer supplier Lenovo is now the dominant supplier across the world

• June 19, 2020 19 Jun'20

  Microsoft wants developers to be Quantum-inspired

  Some problems cannot be solved on binary computers. With a new set of tools, Microsoft hopes to entice developers to swap bits for QuBits

• June 15, 2020 15 Jun'20

  UK quantum technology projects get a £70m boost

  Government is funding 38 projects, one-third of which are focused on quantum computing

• April 28, 2020 28 Apr'20

  IBM celebrates quantum cloud fourth anniversary with coding challenge

  IBM has set four tasks for programmers to try out on its cloud-based quantum computer, in a bid to widen quantum coding skills

• April 24, 2020 24 Apr'20

  Intel clean rooms work through lockdown

  Intel has reported an increase in PC and datacentre processor sales, reflecting the shift to online and home schooling and working

• April 15, 2020 15 Apr'20

  Folding@home invites people to share processors to combat coronavirus

  In the 1990s, people could donate their spare computing in a distributed project to find aliens. Now distributed simulations are tackling the Covid-19 pandemic

• April 08, 2020 08 Apr'20

  Australian open source project to expand global reach

  Data61’s open source seL4 microkernel project will be supported by a new foundation created under the auspices of the Linux Foundation

• April 03, 2020 03 Apr'20

  Singapore researchers get priority access to HPC resources

  Singapore’s National Supercomputing Centre is fast-tracking access to its high-performance computing resources for researchers working on Covid-19-related projects

• March 27, 2020 27 Mar'20

  Huawei to boost Kunpeng ecosystem in cloud play

  Chinese tech giant will shell out $200m this year to build an ecosystem around its Arm-based processor to bolster its position in the cloud computing market

• March 25, 2020 25 Mar'20

  Coronavirus: iFixit builds resource to support medical technicians

  Mobile phone DIY repair site is building on the work of Frank’s Hospital Workshop to help medtechs repair ventilators

• February 18, 2020 18 Feb'20

  China’s tech sector to shrink by 10% in Q1 amid virus outbreak

  Hardware makers will be hit more badly than software houses, but the decline in China’s ICT market will be limited to the first quarter

• February 17, 2020 17 Feb'20

  Met Office gets a decade of funding to update supercomputers

  As the UK goes through another storm battering, the Met Office has received a £1.2bn investment to power the next decade of weather forecasts

• January 29, 2020 29 Jan'20

  Formulus Black Forsa turns memory into block storage

  Forsa allows customers to bring application data into memory, by provisioning DRAM or persistent memory as block access storage with latency several times better than NVMe flash

• January 13, 2020 13 Jan'20

  Secure data erasure is needed to ensure more people recycle their tech

  A dedicated team of IT recycling experts offers free data erasure to give people confidence that their old tech can be safely disposed of

• January 09, 2020 09 Jan'20

  CES 2020: IBM grows Q network collaborators

  ExxonMobil hopes quantum computing will enable it to model processes at the atomic scale – something that cannot be achieved today

• January 08, 2020 08 Jan'20

  CES 2020: Chipmakers bet on new designs to boost PC market

  The roulette wheels are certainly spinning in Las Vegas, with chipmakers vying for attention to show off their latest hardware innovations

• December 20, 2019 20 Dec'19

  Top 10 end-user computing stories of 2019

  The Windows desktop and laptop are not going away, but desktop IT is changing. Computer Weekly looks at the top trends in end-user computing

• December 12, 2019 12 Dec'19

  Stanford University finds that AI is outpacing Moore’s Law

  Every three months, the speed of artificial intelligence computation doubles, according to Stanford University’s 2019 AI Index report

• December 10, 2019 10 Dec'19

  Rapid evolution of quantum computing a concern for CISOs

  With the race to achieve so-called quantum supremacy hotting up, security pros are concerned that it will outpace the development of appropriate safeguards, according to a report

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  China bans foreign computing kit from government contracts

  All government offices and public institutions must eliminate foreign hardware and software within three years, according to a leaked directive dubbed 3-5-2

• December 04, 2019 04 Dec'19

  AWS Outposts debuts in Australia

  Amazon Web Services rolls out Outposts in Australia, enabling enterprises to run a consistent version of the AWS platform at locations that require low latency

• December 03, 2019 03 Dec'19

  AWS VP of engineering on the cloud giant's first major quantum computing push

  Amazon Web Services (AWS) has used the first day of its annual Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas to set out its plans to democratise quantum computing, while also firming up the enterprise use cases for the technology

• October 29, 2019 29 Oct'19

  Why Singapore’s GovTech is building an IoT technology stack

  Government Technology Agency has built an internet of things technology stack to level the playing field for smaller firms and drive innovation in public sector IoT projects

• October 17, 2019 17 Oct'19

  BEIS launches multimillion-pound security investment package

  Government is making available more than £50m to support a range of new cyber security initiatives and collaborations, including the latest phase of its Digital Security by Design programme

• October 17, 2019 17 Oct'19

  Barclays demonstrates proof-of-concept quantum clearing algorithm

  Barclays and IBM researchers publish paper on a quantum computing algorithm for securities transaction trading

• October 16, 2019 16 Oct'19

  Intel makes Pivot towards 5G with Smart Edge acquisition

  Chip giant Intel has signed a definitive agreement to buy the Smart Edge intelligent-edge platform business from infrastructure and service provider Pivot Technology Solutions

• October 01, 2019 01 Oct'19

  Intel previews Optane persistent memory, QLC SSD and even PLC

  Intel sets out roadmap for second-generation Optane persistent memory – between SSD and DRAM – as well as QLC SSD, with talk of PLC (penta-level cell) after that

• September 27, 2019 27 Sep'19

  How Graphcore is putting AI on steroids

  UK chipmaker Graphcore’s intelligence processing unit may just hold the key to unlocking the full potential of artificial intelligence

• September 25, 2019 25 Sep'19

  Why quantum needs a classic approach for supremacy

  Google claims it has developed an algorithm for a quantum computer that would take a traditional “classical” computer 10,000 years to run. We investigate

• September 23, 2019 23 Sep'19

  AWS G4 aims to lower cost of GPU-powered AI inference

  Amazon Web Services seeks to cut the cost of running artificial intelligence inference engines with the introduction of a Nvida V100 GPU-based instance

• September 23, 2019 23 Sep'19

  The perfect storm for silicon photonics

  By packaging optics with silicon chips, silicon photonics will enable datacentres to keep up with the exponential growth in demand for bandwidth

• September 03, 2019 03 Sep'19

  Assessing China’s machine learning platforms

  In a new market research report, technology analyst firm IDC offers insights on key suppliers of machine learning platforms in China

• August 19, 2019 19 Aug'19

  Startup unveils trillion-transistor AI accelerator chip

  The AI chip has 10,000 times more bandwidth to accelerate artificial intelligence training

• August 13, 2019 13 Aug'19

  Cray to support US Department of Energy El Capitan exascale programme

  Shasta platform will be used to expand traditional supercomputing to support complex workflows

• August 07, 2019 07 Aug'19

  Industry collaborates to patch SwapGS CPU vulnerability

  Newly disclosed SwapGS vulnerability in modern processors has been patched in Windows, Linux and ChromeOS, underlining the importance of keeping systems up to date

• July 15, 2019 15 Jul'19

  Alan Turing to be face of new £50 note

  Computing pioneer and code-breaker Alan Turing is to be featured on the new polymer £50 note

• July 15, 2019 15 Jul'19

  How Apollo 11 influenced modern computer software and hardware

  On 16 July 1969, Apollo 11 began its historic journey to send man to the Moon. We look at the pioneering computer technology developed by Nasa

• July 03, 2019 03 Jul'19

  IT pros see a role for high-performance computing in business

  New application areas are pushing the limits of current computing architecture, leading to HPC moving out of research facilities

• June 17, 2019 17 Jun'19

  Airbus works with Microsoft to trial HoloLens in aircraft manufacturing

  Aircraft company Airbus believes mixed reality systems, powered using headsets such as HoloLens, will drive its digital manufacturing strategy

• June 14, 2019 14 Jun'19

  How computer vision powered by Nvidia helped Winnow tackle food waste

  Winnow has developed a biologically inspired machine learning algorithm to identify what foods are being thrown away

• June 13, 2019 13 Jun'19

  Computer scientist Frank Land receives OBE

  Frank Land, known for his work on the world's first business computer LEO, has received an OBE

• May 01, 2019 01 May'19

  How Amadeus used FPGAs to break Moore’s Law threshold

  The innovation team at Amadeus worked with technology university ETH in Zurich to test how FPGAs can be used in artificial intelligence

• April 17, 2019 17 Apr'19

  Autonomous vehicle tech is too costly and unreliable for production

  Level 5, fully autonomous vehicles are a decade away. By then, the tech will be so expensive, that it will only be available on high-end vehicles

• April 17, 2019 17 Apr'19

  Apple and Qualcomm settle up as Intel quits 5G chip business

  Apple and Qualcomm have set aside their ongoing litigation and struck a deal to work together on future 5G iPhones, leaving Intel in the lurch

• April 04, 2019 04 Apr'19

  Prepare to deploy custom hardware to speed up AI

  Latest forecasts suggest spending on artificial intelligence is ramping up, and organisations that need raw machine learning performance are turning to custom hardware

• March 12, 2019 12 Mar'19

  Singapore invests S$200m to upgrade supercomputing capabilities

  The investment will shore up Singapore’s supercomputing prowess to facilitate research collaboration, as well as address national and business challenges

• February 20, 2019 20 Feb'19

  How the immersive VR film Tree was created

  New Reality Company worked across games development and video effects to bring about a virtual reality immersive experience

• February 07, 2019 07 Feb'19

  Businesses still figuring out digital transformation have already lost

  Accenture is calling it a post-digital era, one where businesses are already looking beyond digitisation to capitalise on new tech-driven opportunities

• January 28, 2019 28 Jan'19

  Government to pump £70m into ‘designing out’ cyber threats

  Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund cash to be used for designing and developing more secure hardware in a bid to eradicate cyber threats

• January 09, 2019 09 Jan'19

  Mercedes-Benz collaborates with Nvidia on in-car supercomputer

  Partners plan to work on an in-car computer for autonomous driving, and to replace existing in-car systems

• January 08, 2019 08 Jan'19

  Exxon joins IBM’s quantum committee as Q System One goes commercial

  The Q System One is said to be the world’s first commercial quantum computer. ExxonMobil and CERN hope to exploit IBM’s latest tech

• January 07, 2019 07 Jan'19

  Huawei debuts Arm-based chip, eyes broader server market

  Huawei’s Kunpeng 920 processor is geared towards big data and infrastructure applications, marking its foray into Arm-based servers that are set to change the dynamics of the datacentre market

• January 03, 2019 03 Jan'19

  Intel admits chip security has a long way to go

  A year ago, the world came to realise how a side-loading attack could compromise a microprocessor. Intel has been working hard to make fixes easier

• November 28, 2018 28 Nov'18

  HPE shows off first fruits of $4bn edge computing investment

  Tech supplier has beefed up its Edgeline portfolio with new hardware and software offerings to make it easier to manage edge devices, applications and data

• November 26, 2018 26 Nov'18

  China leapfrogs US in supercomputer deployments

  China has more than twice the number of supercomputers than the US, and it is finding a ready market for its Lenovo supercomputers among US tech companies in Ireland, the latest top 500 supercomputer list reveals

• November 14, 2018 14 Nov'18

  OpenStack Foundation will tackle infrastructure barriers to enterprise AI adoption

  OpenStack supporting community will help enterprises to overcome infrastructure barriers to adopting artificial intelligence technologies in 2019 as demand for GPU and FPGA-based set-ups grows

• November 13, 2018 13 Nov'18

  Thailand’s Democrat Party holds election with blockchain

  The Zcoin blockchain was used to store file hashes of voting data and identities of voting members of Thailand’s main opposition party

• November 09, 2018 09 Nov'18

  Post-quantum cryptography a major challenge, says expert

  The crypto wars are just beginning and open systems are key to improved security in future, says cryptography expert

• October 04, 2018 04 Oct'18

  APAC SMEs still hanging on to older PCs

  A majority of small and medium-sized business in Asia-Pacific are still using PCs older than four years out of cost and application compatibility concerns

• September 24, 2018 24 Sep'18

  Alibaba Cloud and Intel team up on IoT

  The Joint Edge Computing Platform lets enterprises train AI models at the edge of a network to support real-time decision-making

• September 21, 2018 21 Sep'18

  Foreshadow mitigation obscures licensing impact

  Performance of virtual machines could be severely affected by the workaround for Intel’s latest processor flaw. To compensate, more processors will be needed

• September 13, 2018 13 Sep'18

  Autumn Budget 2018: Guarantees sought over future funding of national quantum computing programme

  The chair of the Science and Tech Committee has written to the chancellor Philip Hammond to demand assurances that more funding for the UK's quantum computing efforts will be forthcoming in the Autumn 2018 budget

• August 28, 2018 28 Aug'18

  Brussels loans Nokia €500m to fund European 5G research

  European Investment Bank is loaning Nokia half a billion euros to accelerate 5G mobile network R&D

• August 15, 2018 15 Aug'18

  Intel releases fix for latest chip security flaws

  Businesses and consumers are advised to download security updates from Intel for new security flaws that could allow attackers to access protected data, but some cloud providers could see a performance impact

• August 06, 2018 06 Aug'18

  Virus outbreak at iPhone chip plant could delay shipments

  A computer virus at an iPhone chip manufacturing plant could delay shipments of Apple’s latest smartphones, but the impact will be limited, say analysts

• August 03, 2018 03 Aug'18

  CIO interview: Alex von Schirmeister, CDTIO, RS Components

  The electronics distributor’s chief digital, technology and innovation officer (CDTIO) on putting in place a new IT infrastructure, creating a digital business and accepting risk

• July 18, 2018 18 Jul'18

  Spectre variant gives buffer overflow a new twist

  New variants of the Spectre microprocessor bugs use buffer overflow-style attacks to run malicious code

• July 17, 2018 17 Jul'18

  Quantum is revolutionary, but UK must fix funding

  Quantum sensing could replace GPS navigation, and cut the cost of major building projects. But industry needs to work with academia to prototype quantum technologies

• June 28, 2018 28 Jun'18

  University of Melbourne claims quantum computing breakthrough

  Australian scientists have simulated the power of quantum computing on classical computers to solve a mathematical problem, paving the way for future breakthroughs in the nascent field

• June 13, 2018 13 Jun'18

  Australian university reaches for the stars after HPC boost

  The University of Sydney has upgraded its supercomputing infrastructure to answer big questions on cosmology and keep pace with growing research needs

• June 06, 2018 06 Jun'18

  Digital Catapult partners with Cray to give AI startups supercomputing power

  Innovation centre says partnership will bring down some of the barriers to entry that startups often face in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning

• May 29, 2018 29 May'18

  Intelligence on the edge will see workloads migrate from clouds

  IoT devices’ ability to make their own decisions will see computing shift back from the cloud to the edge, ABI Research has predicted

• May 22, 2018 22 May'18

  Security researchers find fourth CPU flaw

  Security researchers have reported another flaw in common microprocessor chips related to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities

• May 09, 2018 09 May'18

  Microsoft predicts five-year wait for quantum computing in Azure

  Industry experts predict it will take 10 years for quantum computing to become a reality, but Microsoft believes it has the research edge, with systems, software and technology to get there in five

• May 02, 2018 02 May'18

  ARM aims to boost physical security of IoT

  Chipmaker ARM announces microprocessor aimed at improving the physical security capabilities of devices making up the internet of things

• April 30, 2018 30 Apr'18

  Australia government earmarks A$70m to refresh supercomputers

  The investment will fund replacements for two supercomputers at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in an effort to bolster Australia’s research capabilities

• April 23, 2018 23 Apr'18

  Next generation of SCADA industrial controls will protect against cyber attack

  Oil, energy and chemical companies are rethinking how to control big manufacturing plants, replacing expensive control technology with cheaper, more secure systems, taking their cue from biology

• April 23, 2018 23 Apr'18

  AI is renewing interest in high-performance computing

  Growing adoption of artificial intelligence is spurring interest in high-performance computing beyond research institutions

• April 09, 2018 09 Apr'18

  US tax cuts and dollar’s decline propel datacentre spending

  Gartner’s latest spending forecast shows the strongest growth in IT spending, which it expects to total $3.7tn in 2018, up 6.2% from 2017