In context: When a market is utterly dominated by a single player as AI infrastructure has been by Nvidia, it's tough for any rival to make a dent. No company knows this better than AMD. They've been battling in many segments against Nvidia, as well as other semiconductor giants like Intel, for decades now.

That challenge hasn't deterred AMD. If anything, it seems to have sharpened

A hot potato: After introducing Windows 11, Microsoft forced the entire PC ecosystem to turn the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) into a standard component for every new motherboard or CPU. Now, Redmond is exploiting the now-pervasive device to further strengthen the Windows activation process in the enterprise market.

Microsoft recently announced a brand-new addition to Key Management Service (KMS), a standard feature for mass activation of

The big picture: AMD had a busy week, announcing the Ryzen 7 7700X3D CPU for gaming PCs and the Epyc Venice lineup for agentic AI workloads in data centers and high-end workstations. The company also launched the Helios rack-scale AI system at its Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco and previewed its next-generation Zen 7 and Zen 8 CPU architectures.

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Rumor mill: AMD's well-regarded 3D V-Cache tech has so far been almost exclusive to socketed desktop CPUs. But if a new leak proves accurate, shoppers hunting for a high-end gaming laptop next year could get a genuine new alternative to Intel.

Prominent tipster Golden Pig Upgrade claims that AMD is developing a new Zen 5 laptop CPU equipped with 3D V-

The takeaway: There was a point not long ago when Intel was in so much trouble that a takeover of the company seemed inevitable. Now, Team Blue has turned its business around to the point where it's just experienced its fastest growth in 15 years, but it's come at a very high cost.

Intel reported second-quarter revenue of $16.1 billion, up 25%

The big picture: Nvidia lifted the embargo on its Vera CPU deep dive this week, and the disclosure amounts to a direct challenge to two decades of x86 datacenter design philosophy. This is the most detail the company has shared on the chip since it first appeared on the Rubin roadmap, and it confirms something I have suspected for a while: Nvidia is not treating the CPU as an attach story anymore. It

The big picture: McAfee was a trusted name in the antivirus software market during the MS-DOS days. Many computers came with a copy of the company's VirusScan freeware tool to fend off trojan horses and other virus threats. Today, McAfee is a name that's almost exclusively trusted in the advertising and B2B markets. End users would very much prefer to avoid McAfee products at this point, which

Ripple effect: While there's debate over details of OpenAI's claim that one of its AI models went rogue and hacked another company, it's already led to a push for an "AI kill switch" from lawmakers. This would let the government order firms to shut down or slow AI models deemed a public risk.

Sponsored by Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (

In brief: Microsoft's long-teased free, ad-supported cloud gaming option has finally emerged. Recognizing the controversial nature of in-game advertising, the company stresses that it is testing solutions that gamers find tolerable in a bid to lower Xbox's barrier to entry.

For a limited time, Xbox Insiders can now access games they own over the cloud on Xbox consoles, PCs, and mobile devices without