Nvidia Beats Apple in Market Value: AI Chip Wars, New AMD Processors & More

Nvidia overtakes Apple in market value

Nvidia (known as 英伟达 in Mainland China) became the world’s second‑largest tech company by market cap, briefly reaching $3.01 trillion, just above Apple’s $3 trillion.

Boosted by its flagship H100 AI chip, Nvidia’s valuation surged from $1 trillion in May 2023 to over $2 trillion this year, surpassing Amazon and Alphabet, and sitting just behind Microsoft at $3.15 trillion.

Its AI accelerators now command 70‑95% of the AI‑chip market, and the company plans to launch the Blackwell B200 GPU later this year.

AMD unveils next‑gen AI processor

At the 2024 Taipei Computer Expo, AMD announced the Ryzen AI 300 series for generative‑AI workloads, featuring the NPU XDNA2, iGPU RDNA 3.5 (up to 16 compute units), and Zen 5 CPU cores.

The lineup includes the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (12‑core/24‑thread, 5.1 GHz, 36 MB cache, Radeon 890M) and Ryzen AI 9 365 (10‑core/12‑thread, 5.0 GHz, 34 MB cache, Radeon 880M), both delivering 50 TOPS NPU performance.

Elon Musk redirects Nvidia chips from Tesla to X

Elon Musk ordered thousands of Nvidia H100 AI chips originally intended for Tesla to be moved to his social platform X, potentially delaying Tesla’s $500 million processor acquisition.

He announced plans to purchase up to 85,000 H100 chips this year, allocating $10 billion for AI training and inference, primarily for automotive applications.

Microsoft announces further layoffs

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed plans to cut roughly 1,000 jobs across the company, including up to 1,500 positions in the Azure for Operators unit and reductions in the mixed‑reality division.

Analysts note that AI‑related capital expenditures are expected to exceed $50 billion this year, a 50%+ increase YoY, prompting cost‑saving measures.

Google launches a new developer program

Google’s new developer program gives participants access to AI chat UI components across Google for Developers, Firebase, and Google Cloud, along with code snippets, example generation, and a five‑workspace Project IDX environment.

Members can join the Google‑sponsored community groups, earn cloud‑skill credits via the Google Cloud Innovators program, and receive badges for completed learning paths.

GitHub Actions adds Arm64 support

GitHub Actions now offers Arm64 runners, enabling developers to build, test, and deploy applications on Arm64 hardware directly within the CI/CD platform.

The Arm64 runners are 37% cheaper than their x64 counterparts and are built from images provided by Arm, including Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows environments.

Ubuntu Core 24 released for IoT and embedded

Canonical released Ubuntu Core 24, a lightweight IoT‑focused Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 24.04, featuring a secure snap‑based packaging system and support for Arm, x86, and RISC‑V platforms.

The OS is designed for fast, factory‑scale deployments and will receive security updates for 12 years.

Zabbix 7.0.0 released

Zabbix 7.0.0, the latest open‑source distributed monitoring solution, adds a front‑end item‑history widget selector, new browser‑based website templates, and removes several deprecated features.

The software remains GPL‑v2 licensed and is freely downloadable.