In an unusual arrangement to secure export licenses, Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of revenue from certain chip sales to China. The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration halted the sale of advanced computer chips to China in April over national security concerns, but Nvidia and AMD revealed in July that Washington would allow them to resume sales of the H20 and MI308 chips, which are used in artificial intelligence development. President Trump confirmed the terms of the unusual arrangement in a Monday press conference while noting that he originally wanted 20% of the sales revenue when Nvidia asked to sell the "obsolete" H20 chip to China. The president credited Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for negotiating him down to 15%. "So we negotiated a little deal. So he's selling a essentially old chip," Trump said.

Nvidia did not comment about the specific details of the agreement or its quid pro quo nature, but said they would adhere to the export rules laid out by the administration. "We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven't shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide," Nvidia wrote in a statement to the AP. "America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America's AI tech stack can be the world's standard if we race."

Google will discontinue Steam for Chromebook Beta on January 1, 2026, removing all installed games from devices after that date. The beta launched in March 2022 as an alpha before expanding to beta status in November 2022 with reduced hardware requirements of Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 processors and 8GB RAM. The program never progressed beyond beta testing despite supporting 99 compatible Linux-based titles through its three-year run.

ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols shares his list of "what's new and improved" in the latest Linux 6.16 kernel. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: First, the Rust language is continuing to become more well-integrated into the kernel. At the top of my list is that the kernel now boasts Rust bindings for the driver core and PCI device subsystem. This approach will make it easier to add new Rust-based hardware drivers to Linux. Additionally, new Rust abstractions have been integrated into the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM), particularly for ioctl handling, file/GEM memory management, and driver/device infrastructure for major GPU vendors, such as AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. These changes should reduce vulnerabilities and optimize graphics performance. This will make gamers and AI/ML developers happier.

Linux 6.16 also brings general improvements to Rust crate support. Crate is Rust's packaging format. This will make it easier to build, maintain, and integrate Rust kernel modules into the kernel. For those of you who still love C, don't worry. The vast majority of kernel code remains in C, and Rust is unlikely to replace C soon. In a decade, we may be telling another story. Beyond Rust, this latest release also comes with several major file system improvements. For starters, the XFS filesystem now supports large atomic writes. This capability means that large multi-block write operations are 'atomic,' meaning all blocks are updated or none. This enhances data integrity and prevents data write errors. This move is significant for companies that use XFS for databases and large-scale storage.

Perhaps the most popular Linux file system, Ext4, is also getting many improvements. These boosts include faster commit paths, large folio support, and atomic multi-fsblock writes for bigalloc filesystems. What these improvements mean, if you're not a file-system nerd, is that we should see speedups of up to 37% for sequential I/O workloads. If your Linux laptop doubles as a music player, another nice new feature is that you can now stream your audio over USB even while the rest of your system is asleep. That capability's been available in Android for a while, but now it's part of mainline Linux.

If security is a top priority for you, the 6.16 kernel now supports Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and Intel Trusted Domain Extensions (TDX). This addition, along with Linux's improved support for AMD Secure Encrypted Virtualization and Secure Memory Encryption (SEV-SNP), enables you to encrypt your software's memory in what's known as confidential computing. This feature improves cloud security by encrypting a user's virtual machine memory, meaning someone who cracks a cloud can't access your data. Linux 6.16 also delivers several chip-related upgrades. It introduces support for Intel's Advanced Performance Extensions (APX), doubling x86 general-purpose registers from 16 to 32 and boosting performance on next-gen CPUs like Lunar Lake and Granite Rapids Xeon. Additionally, the new CONFIG_X86_NATIVE_CPU option allows users to build processor-optimized kernels for greater efficiency.

Support for Nvidia's AI-focused Blackwell GPUs has also been improved, and updates to TCP/IP with DMABUF help offload networking tasks to GPUs and accelerators. While these changes may go unnoticed by everyday users, high-performance systems will see gains and OpenVPN users may finally experience speeds that challenge WireGuard.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said that chips produced at TSMC's new Arizona plant will cost 5-20% more than those made in Taiwan, but emphasized that the premium is worth it for supply chain resilience. Bloomberg reports: AMD expects its first chips from TSMC's Arizona facilities by the end of the year, Su said. The extra expense is worth it because the company is diversifying the crucial supply of chips, Su said in an interview with Bloomberg Television following her onstage appearance. That will make the industry less prone to the type of disruptions experienced during the pandemic. "We have to consider resiliency in the supply chain," she said. "We learned that in the pandemic."

TSMC's new Arizona plant is already comparable with those in Taiwan when it comes to the measure of yield -- the amount of good chips a production run produces per batch -- Su told the audience at the forum.

AMD is warning users of a newly discovered form of side-channel attack affecting a broad range of its chips that could lead to information disclosure. Register: Akin to Meltdown and Spectre, the Transient Scheduler Attack (TSA) comprises four vulnerabilities that AMD said it discovered while looking into a Microsoft report about microarchitectural leaks.

The four bugs do not appear too venomous at face value -- two have medium-severity ratings while the other two are rated "low." However, the low-level nature of the exploit's impact has nonetheless led Trend Micro and CrowdStrike to assess the threat as "critical."

The reasons for the low severity scores are the high degree of complexity involved in a successful attack -- AMD said it could only be carried out by an attacker able to run arbitrary code on a target machine. It affects AMD processors (desktop, mobile and datacenter models), including 3rd gen and 4th gen EPYC chips -- the full list is here.

Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares news that Texas Instruments has announced plans to invest more than $60 billion to expand its U.S. manufacturing operations in the United States. From a report: The funds will be used to build or expand seven chip-making facilities in Texas as well as Utah, and will create 60,000 jobs, TI said on Wednesday, calling it the "largest investment in foundational semiconductor manufacturing in U.S. history." The company did not give a timeline for the investment.

Unlike AI chip firms Nvidia and AMD, TI makes analog or foundational chips used in everyday devices such as smartphones, cars and medical devices, giving it a large client base that includes Apple, SpaceX and Ford Motor. The spending pledge follows similar announcements from others in the semiconductor industry, including Micron, which said last week that it would expand its U.S. investment by $30 billion, taking its planned spending to $200 billion. [...]

Like other companies unveiling such spending commitments, TI's announcement includes funds already allocated to facilities that are either under construction or ramping up. It will build two additional plants in Sherman, Texas, based on future demand. "TI is building dependable, low-cost 300 millimeter capacity at scale to deliver the analog and embedded processing chips that are vital for nearly every type of electronic system," said CEO Haviv Ilan.

Microsoft is positioning Windows as the primary gaming platform for Xbox, according to Xbox president Sarah Bond. "We're working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming," Bond said in a video announcing a partnership with AMD for next-generation Xbox hardware spanning consoles and handhelds.

The statement, PCWorld points out, aligns with Microsoft's recent "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign, which promotes phones, PCs, televisions, and traditional consoles as Xbox devices. The company's newly announced Xbox Ally X handheld runs Windows beneath its Xbox interface, allowing access to multiple game stores unlike Valve's Steam Deck.

Microsoft has shifted strategy following weak Xbox console sales compared to PlayStation, spending billions to acquire publishers including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard while expanding Xbox Cloud Gaming services across multiple device types.

Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.4. This fresh new release improves on nearly every front, with progress being made in accessibility, color rendering, tablet support, window management, and more.

Plasma already offered virtual desktops and customizable tiles to help organize your windows and activities, and now it lets you choose a different configuration of tiles on each virtual desktop. The Wayland session brings some new accessibility features: you can now move the pointer using your keyboard's number pad keys, or use a three-finger touchpad pinch gesture to zoom in or out.

Plasma file transfer notification now shows a speed graph, giving you a more visual idea of how fast the transfer is going and how long it will take to complete. When any applications are in full screen mode Plasma will now enter Do Not Disturb mode and only show urgent notifications. When you exit full-screen mode, you'll see a summary of any notifications you missed.

Now, when an application tries to access the microphone and finds it muted, a notification will pop up. A new feature in the Application Launcher widget will place a green New! tag next to newly installed apps, so you can easily find where something you just installed lives in the menu.

The Display and Monitor page in System Settings comes with a brand new HDR calibration wizard. Support for Extended Dynamic Range (a different kind of HDR) and P010 video color format has also been added. System Monitor now supports usage monitoring for AMD and Intel graphic cards -- it can even show the GPU usage on a per-process basis.

Spectacle, the built-in app for taking screenshots and screen recordings, has a much-improved design and more streamlined functionality. The background of the desktop or window now darkens when an authentication dialog shows up, helping you locate and focus on the window asking for your password.

There's a brand-new Animations page in System Settings that groups all the settings for purely visual animated effects into one place, making them easier to find and configure. Aurorae, a newly added SVG vector graphics theme engine, enhances KWin window decorations.

You can read more about these and many other other features in the Plasma 6.4 announcement and complete changelog.

KDE isn't the only organization reaching out to " as Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10.

"Now, The Document Foundation, maker of LibreOffice, has also joined in to support the Endof10 initiative," reports the tech blog Neowin: The foundation writes: "You don't have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem."

It further adds the "real costs" of upgrading to Windows 11 as it writes:

"The move to Windows 11 isn't just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.... The end of Windows 10 does not mark the end of choice, but the beginning of a new era. If you are tired of mandatory updates, invasive changes, and being bound by the commercial choices of a single supplier, it is time for a change. Linux and LibreOffice are ready — 2025 is the right year to choose digital freedom!"
The first words on LibreOffice's announcement? "The countdown has begun...."

Rocky Linux 10 "Red Quartz" has reached general availability, notes a new article in The Register — surveying the differences between "RHELatives" — the major alternatives to Red Hat Enterprise Linux: The Rocky 10 release notes describe what's new, such as support for RISC-V computers. Balancing that, this version only supports the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 series; it drops Rocky 9.x's support for the older Pi 3 and Pi Zero models...

RHEL 10 itself, and Rocky with it, now require x86-64-v3, meaning Intel "Haswell" generation kit from about 2013 onward. Uniquely among the RHELatives, AlmaLinux offers a separate build of version 10 for x86-64-v2 as well, meaning Intel "Nehalem" and later — chips from roughly 2008 onward. AlmaLinux has a history of still supporting hardware that's been dropped from RHEL and Rocky, which it's been doing since AlmaLinux 9.4. Now that includes CPUs. In comparison, the system requirements for Rocky Linux 10 are the same as for RHEL 10. The release notes say.... "The most significant change in Rocky Linux 10 is the removal of support for x86-64-v2 architectures. AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures for x86-64-v3 are now required."

A significant element of the advertising around RHEL 10 involves how it has an AI assistant. This is called Red Hat Enterprise Linux Lightspeed, and you can use it right from a shell prompt, as the documentation describes... It's much easier than searching man pages, especially if you don't know what to look for... [N]either AlmaLinux 10 nor Rocky Linux 10 includes the option of a helper bot. No big surprise there... [Rocky Linux] is sticking closest to upstream, thanks to a clever loophole to obtain source RPMs. Its hardware requirements also closely parallel RHEL 10, and CIQ is working on certifications, compliance, and special editions. Meanwhile, AlmaLinux is maintaining support for older hardware and CPUs, which will widen its appeal, and working with partners to ensure reboot-free updates and patching, rather than CIQ's keep-it-in-house approach. All are valid, and all three still look and work almost identically... except for the LLM bot assistant.

The PCI-SIG, which oversees the development of the PCIe specification, has officially released the final spec for PCI Express 7.0. "The PCIe 7.0 specification increases the per-lane data transfer rate to 128 GT/s in each direction, which is twice as fast as PCIe 6.0 supports and four times faster than PCIe 5.0," reports Tom's Hardware. "Such a significant performance increase enables devices with 16 PCIe 7.0 lanes to transfer up to 256 GB/s in each direction, not accounting for protocol overhead. The new version of the interface continues to use PAM4 signaling while maintaining the 1b/1b FLIT encoding method first introduced in PCIe 6.0." From the report: To achieve PCIe 7.0's 128 GT/s record data transfer rate, developers of PCIe 7.0 had to increase the physical signaling rate to 32 GHz or beyond. Keep in mind that both PCIe 5.0 and 6.0 use a physical signaling rate of 16 GHz to enable 32 GT/s using NRZ signaling and 64 GT/s using PAM4 signaling (which allows transfers of two bits per symbol). With PCIe 7.0, developers had to boost the physical frequency for the first time since 2017, which required tremendous work at various levels, as maintaining signal integrity at 32 GHz over long distances using copper wires is extremely challenging.

Beyond raw throughput, the update also offers improved power efficiency and stronger support for longer or more complex electrical channels, particularly when using a cabling solution, to cater to the needs of next-generation data center-grade bandwidth-hungry applications, such as 800G Ethernet, Ultra Ethernet, and quantum computing, among others. [...] With the PCIe 7.0 standard officially released, members of the PCI-SIG, including AMD, Intel, and Nvidia, can begin finalizing the development of their platforms that support the PCIe specifications. PCI-SIG plans to start preliminary compliance tests in 2027, with official interoperability tests scheduled for 2028. Therefore, expect actual PCIe 7.0 devices and platforms on the market sometime in 2028 - 2029, if everything goes as planned. PCI-SIG also announced that pathfinding for PCIe 8.0 is underway, and members of the organization are actively exploring possibilities and defining capabilities of a standard that they are going to use in 2030 and beyond.

"Interestingly, when asked whether PCIe 8.0 would double data transfer rate to 256 GT/s in each direction (and therefore enable bandwidth of 1 TB/s in both directions using 16 lanes), Al Yanes, president of PCI-SIG, said that while this is an intention, he would not like to make any definitive claims," reports Tom's Hardware. "Additionally, he stated that PCI-SIG is looking forward to enabling PCIe 8.0, which will offer higher performance over copper wires in addition to optical interconnects."

Nintendo's new Switch 2 console sold a record 3 million units after its launch Thursday. But then today Microsoft announced their own upcoming handheld gaming device that's Xbox-branded (and Windows-powered).

Working with ASUS' ROG division, they build a device that weighs more than the Nintendo Switch 2, and "is marginally heavier than the Steam Deck," reports Engadget. But "at least those grips look more ergonomic than those on the Nintendo Switch 2 (which is already cramping my hands) or even the Steam Deck." There are two variants of the handheld: the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. Microsoft didn't reveal pricing, but the handhelds are coming this holiday... Critically, Microsoft and ROG aren't locking the devices to only playing Xbox games (though you can do that natively, via the cloud or by accessing an Xbox console remotely). You'll be able to play games from Battle.net and "other leading PC storefronts" too. Obviously, there's Game Pass integration here, as well as support for the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, which enables you to play games with synced progress across a swathe of devices after buying them once...

There's a dedicated physical Xbox button that can bring up a Game Bar overlay, which seemingly makes it easy to switch between apps and games, tweak settings, start chatting with friends and more... You'll be able to mod games on either system as well.

The Xbox Ally is powered by the AMD Ryzen Z2 A Processor, and has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. The Xbox Ally X is the more powerful model. It has a AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. They each have a microSD card reader, so you won't need to worry about shelling out for proprietary storage options to have extra space for your games... Both systems boast "HD haptics..." Both systems should be capable of outputting video to a TV or monitor, as they have two USB-C ports with support for DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery 3.0.
"Microsoft has needed to respond to SteamOS ever since the Steam Deck launched three years ago," argues The Verge, "and it has steadily been tweaking its Xbox app and the Xbox Game Bar on Windows to make both more handheld-friendly..." But there was always a bigger overhaul of Windows required, and we're starting to see parts of that today. "The reality is that we've made tremendous progress on this over the last couple of years, and this is really the device that galvanized those teams and got everybody marching and working towards a moment that we're just really excited to put into the hands of players," says Roanne Sones, corporate vice president of gaming Devices and ecosystem at Xbox, in a briefing with The Verge...

I'll need to try this new interface fully to really get a feel for the Windows changes here, but Microsoft is promising that this isn't just lipstick on top of Windows. "This isn't surface-level changes, we've made significant improvements," says Potvin. "Some of our early testing with the components we've turned off in Windows, we get about 2GB of memory going back to the games while running in the full-screen experience."

Artificial intelligence could soon outpace Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's Institute for Environmental Studies. His research estimates that by the end of 2025, AI could account for nearly half of all electricity used by data centers worldwide -- raising significant concerns about its impact on global climate goals.

"While companies like Google and Microsoft disclose total emissions, few provide transparency on how much of that is driven specifically by AI," notes DIGIT. To fill this gap, de Vries-Gao employed a triangulation method combining chip production data, corporate disclosures, and industry analyst estimates to map AI's growing energy footprint.

His analysis suggests that specialized AI hardware could consume between 46 and 82 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2025 -- comparable to the annual energy usage of countries like Switzerland. Drawing on supply chain data, the study estimates that millions of AI accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD were produced between 2023 and 2024, with a potential combined power demand exceeding 12 gigawatts (GW). A detailed explanation of his methodology is available in his commentary published in Joule.

unixbhaskar shares a report from Phoronix: The X86_NATIVE_CPU Kconfig build time option has been merged for the Linux 6.16 merge window as an easy means of enforcing "-march=native" compiler behavior on AMD and Intel processors to optimize your kernel build for the local CPU architecture/family of your system. For those wanting to "-march=native" your Linux kernel build on AMD/Intel x86_64 processors, the new CONFIG_X86_NATIVE_CPU option can be easily enabled for setting that compiler option on your local kernel builds.

The CONFIG_X86_NATIVE_CPU option is honored if compiling the Linux x86_64 kernel with GCC or LLVM Clang when using Clang 19 or newer due to a compiler bug with the Linux kernel on older compiler versions. In addition to setting the "-march=native" compiler option for the Linux kernel C code, enabling this new Kconfig build option also sets "-Ctarget-cpu=native" for the kernel's Rust code too. "It seems interesting though," comments unixbhaskar. "If the detailed benchmark shows some improvement with the option selected, then distros might start to adopt it for their flavor."

Valve's SteamOS 3.7.8 update brings official support for AMD-powered handhelds like Lenovo's Legion Go and Asus' ROG Ally, along with a new "Steam OS Compatible" library tab and key bug fixes. Other features include a battery charge limit, updated graphics drivers, and a shift to Plasma 6.2.5. Polygon reports: Valve outlines two requirements for the third-party devices not explicitly named in the update to run SteamOS on the handheld: they must be AMD-powered and have an NVMe SSD. Specific instructions for installing the operating system have been updated and listed here.

Before this huge update, players had to use an alternative like Bazzite to achieve a similar SteamOS experience on their devices. The new update also piggybacks off of Valve expanding the Steam Deck Verified categorization system to "any device running SteamOS that's not a Steam Deck" in mid-May. To make matters sweeter, a SteamOS-powered version of the Lenovo Legion Go S is scheduled to release on May 25. You can learn more about SteamOS 3.7.8 here.

Qualcomm announced plans to re-enter the data center market with custom CPUs designed to integrate with Nvidia GPUs and software. As CNBC reports, the move supports Qualcomm's broader strategy to diversify beyond smartphones and into high-growth areas like data centers, PCs, and automotive chips. From the report: "I think we see a lot of growth happening in this space for decades to come, and we have some technology that can add real value added," Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, told CNBC in an interview on Monday. "So I think we have a very disruptive CPU." Amon said the company will make an announcement about the CPU roadmap and the timing of its release "very soon," without offering specifics. The data center CPU market remains highly competitive. Big cloud computing players like Amazon and Microsoft already design and deploy their own custom CPUs. AMD and Intel also have a strong presence.

Addressing the competition, Amon said that there will be a place for Qualcomm in the data center CPU space. "As long as ... we can build a great product, we can bring innovation, and we can add value with some disruptive technology, there's going to be room for Qualcomm, especially in the data center," Amon said. "[It] is a very large addressable market that will that will see a lot of investment for decades to come." Last week, Qualcomm signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi-based AI frim Humain to develop data centers, joining a slew of U.S. tech companies making deals in the region. Humain will operate under Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.

An anonymous reader shared this report from CRN: CPU-tracking firm Mercury Research reported on Thursday that Intel's x86 CPU market share grew 0.3 points sequentially to 75.6 percent against AMD's 24.4 percent in the first quarter. However, AMD managed to increase its market share by 3.6 points year over year. These figures only captured the server, laptop and desktop CPU segments. When including IoT and semicustom products, AMD grew its x86 market share sequentially by 1.5 points and year over year by 0.9 points to 27.1 percent against Intel's 72.9 percent... AMD managed to gain ground on Intel in the desktop and server segments sequentially and year over year. But it was in the laptop segment where Intel eked out a sequential share gain, even though rival AMD ended up finishing the first quarter with a higher share of shipments than what it had a year ago...

While AMD mostly came out on top in the first quarter, [Mercury Research President Dean] McCarron said ARM's estimated CPU share against x86 products crossed into the double digits for the first time, growing 2.3 points sequentially to 11.9 percent. This was mainly due to a "surge" of Nvidia's Grace CPUs for servers and a large increase of Arm CPU shipments for Chromebooks.
Meanwhile, PC Gamer reports that ARM's share of the PC processor market "grew to 13.6% in the first quarter of 2025 from 10.8% in the fourth quarter of 2024." And they note the still-only-rumors that an Arm-based chip from AMD will be available as soon next year. [I]f one of the two big players in x86 does release a mainstream Arm chip for the PC, that will very significant. If it comes at about the same time as Nvidia's rumoured Arm chip for the PC, well, momentum really will be building and questioning x86's dominance will be wholly justified.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: RIP, 486 processor. You've had a long run since Intel released you back in 1989. While Microsoft stopped supporting you with the release of Windows XP in 2001, Linux kept you alive and well for another 20+ years. But all good things must come to an end, and with the forthcoming release of the Linux 6.15 kernel, the 486 and the first Pentium processors will be sunsetted.

Why? Linus Torvalds wrote recently on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML), "I really get the feeling that it's time to leave i486 support behind. There's zero real reason for anybody to waste one second of development effort on this kind of issue." Senior Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar put Torvalds' remark into context, writing, "In the x86 architecture, we have various complicated hardware emulation facilities on x86-32 to support ancient 32-bit CPUs that very very few people are using with modern kernels. This compatibility glue is sometimes even causing problems that people spend time to resolve, which time could be spent on other things." "This will be the first time Linux has dropped support for a major chip family since 2012, when Linux stopped supporting the 386 family," notes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Moving forward, the minimum supported x86 CPU will now be the original Pentium (P5) or newer, requiring the presence of the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) and the CMPXCHG8B (CX8) instruction. These features are absent in the older 486 and early 586 processors, such as the IDT WinChip and AMD Elan families."

That said, you can continue running Linux on Pentium CPUs, but you'll have to "run museum kernels," as Torvalds pointed out in 2022 when he first floated the idea of ending support for 486.

According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration plans to revise a set of chip trade restrictions called the "AI diffusion" rule, which were scheduled to take effect on May 15. CNBC reports: The rule, which was proposed in the last days of the Biden administration, organizes countries into three different tiers, all of which have different restrictions on whether advanced AI chips like those made by Nvidia, AMD, and Intel can be shipped to the country without a license.

Chipmakers including Nvidia and AMD have been against the rule. AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC on Wednesday that the U.S. should strike a balance between restricting access to chips for national security and providing access, which will boost the American chip industry. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said earlier this week that being locked out of the Chinese AI market would be a "tremendous loss."

Microsoft has unveiled a substantial AI-focused update for Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs, introducing features that leverage neural processing units across the operating system. The update centers on AI-powered helpers across core Windows apps, with an intelligent agent in Settings that can locate and adjust options via natural voice commands. Key additions include expanded Click To Do functionality, allowing users to draft Word content based on screen context, engage Reading Coach, or send details directly to Excel tables.

The Photos app gains a relight feature with support for three customizable light sources, while Paint adds object selection and text-to-sticker generation. Snipping Tool will automatically detect and crop prominent screen content, adding text extraction and color picking capabilities. System-level enhancements include an updated Start menu with phone companion integration, AI-powered actions in File Explorer for content summarization, and text generation in Notepad with new formatting options.

Most features will debut first on Windows Insider builds for Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs before expanding to systems with AMD or Intel chips. Several tools, including Ask Copilot and Reading Coach, are already available to Insiders.