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Chipmaker Intel says it is cutting 15% of its huge workforce—about 15,000 jobs—as it tries to turn its business around to compete with more successful rivals like Nvidia and AMD.

In a memo to staff, Intel Corp. CEO Pat Gelsinger said Thursday the company plans to save $10 billion in 2025.

“Simply put, we must align our cost structure with our new operating model and fundamentally change the way we operate,” he wrote in the memo published on Intel’s website. “Our revenues have not grown as expected—and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI. Our costs are too high, our margins are too low.”

The job cuts come in the heels of a disappointing quarter and forecast for the iconic chip maker founded in 1968 at the start of the PC revolution.

Next week, Gelsinger wrote, Intel will announce an “enhanced retirement offering” for eligible employees and offer an application program for voluntary departures.

“These decisions have challenged me to my core, and this is the hardest thing I’ve done in my career,” he said. The bulk of the layoffs are expected to be completed this year.

The Santa Clara, California-based company is also suspending its stock dividend as part of a broader plan to cut costs.

Intel reported a loss for its second quarter along with a small revenue decline, and it forecast third-quarter revenues below Wall Street’s expectations.

Its stock plunged 19% in after-hours trading, indicating that Intel could lose roughly $24 billion of its market value when the stock market opens Friday.

The company posted a loss of $1.6 billion, or 38 cents per share, in the April-June period. That’s down from a profit of $1.5 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings excluding special items were 2 cents per share.

Revenue slid 1% to $12.8 billion from $12.9 billion.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 10 cents per share on revenue of $12.9 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.

“Intel’s announcement of a significant cost-cutting plan including layoffs may bolster its near-term financials, but this move alone is insufficient to redefine its position in the evolving chip market,” said eMarketer analyst Jacob Bourne. “The company faces a critical juncture as it leverages U.S. investment in domestic manufacturing and the surging global demand for AI chips to establish itself in chip fabrication.”

Gelsinger noted in a conference call with analysts that Intel has previously said that its investments in the AI PC market would pressure its profit margins over the short term but should benefit the company in the long term.

“We believe the trade-offs are worth it. The AI PC will grow from less than 10% of the market today to greater than 50% in 2026,” he said.

Unlike its rivals like Nvidia, Intel manufactures chips in addition to designing them. It has been working to build up its foundry business making semiconductors in the U.S., competing with rivals such as market leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. or TSMC.

Helped by Gelsinger’s lobbying efforts since he took the company’s helm in 2021, Intel has been a major beneficiary of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The Biden administration helped shepherd that through Congress amid concerns after the pandemic that the loss of access to chips made in Asia could plunge the U.S. economy into recession.

In March, President Joe Biden celebrated an agreement to provide Intel with up to $8.5 billion in direct funding and $11 billion in loans for computer chip plants around the country, talking up the investment in the political battleground state of Arizona and calling it a way of “bringing the future back to America.” At the time, Gelsinger called the CHIPS Act “the most critical industrial policy legislation since World War II.”

In September 2022, Biden praised Intel as a job creator with its plans to open a new plant near Columbus, Ohio. The president praised the company for plans to “build a workforce of the future” for the $20 billion project, which he said would generate 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 full-time jobs set to pay an average of $135,000 a year.

“The U.S. government wants to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing, especially this is the area of advanced computer chips,” Bourne said. “And Intel has been kind of earmarked for this money. But there’s a lot of infrastructure that goes into this, there’s the building of these facilities, which are really highly specialized—and then you also need to upskill the local workforce where these plants are located. And so it takes time. This is not something that happens overnight.”

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Chipmaker Intel to cut 15,000 jobs as tries to revive its business and compete with rivals (2024, August 2)
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Amazon reports boost in quarterly profits but misses revenue estimates

August 2, 2024

Amazon reported a boost in its quarterly profits Thursday, but the company missed revenue estimates, sending its stock lower in after-hours trading.

The Seattle-based tech company said it earned $13.5 billion for the April-June period, higher than the $10.99 billion industry analysts surveyed by FactSet had anticipated. Amazon earned $6.7 billion during the same period last year.

Earnings per share for the second quarter came out to $1.26, higher than analysts’ expectations of $1.03.

However, investors reacted negatively to other results, leading Amazon shares to fall more than 6% after the closing bell. The company posted revenue of $148 billion, a 10% increase that fell slightly below analyst expectations of $148.67 billion.

Amazon also said it expects revenue for the current quarter, which ends Sept. 30, to be between $154 billion and $158.5 billion—lower than the $158.22 billion forecast by analysts.

Amazon boosted its spending during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep up with higher demand from consumers who became more reliant on online shopping. But as demand cooled and wider economic conditions pressured other parts of its business, the company aggressively cut costs by eliminating unprofitable businesses and laying off more than 27,000 corporate employees.

The cost-cutting has led to growth in profits. However, Amazon is also feeling the benefits of the buzz around generative artificial intelligence, which has helped reaccelerate its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, after it experienced a slowdown.

The company said Thursday that Amazon Web Services saw a 19% jump in revenue compared to the same period last year.

“We’re continuing to make progress on a number of dimensions, but perhaps none more so than the continued reacceleration in AWS growth,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement.

The cloud computing unit, whose customers are mostly businesses, has been attempting to lure in more customers with new tools, including a service called Amazon Bedrock that provides companies with access to AI models they can use to make their own applications. In April, Jassy said AWS was on pace for $100 billion in annual revenue.

But Amazon is also expected to spend more this year to support the unit. During a call with reporters, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said the company spent more than $30 billion during the first half of the year on capital expenditures, the majority of it to boost infrastructure for AWS. It expects that to increase during the second half, he said.

Like other tech companies, Amazon has been ramping up investments in data centers, chips and the power needed for AI workloads, Olsavsky said. Among other projects, the company plans to put billions toward additional infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Mississippi, where it has secured state incentives to build two data center “complexes.”

“The key for us is always to make sure that we’re matching that supply and demand, and running it efficiently so we don’t have excess capacity,” Olsavsky said. “That’s not a concern right now. Our concern is more on getting the supply.”

Meanwhile, revenue for the company’s core e-commerce business grew by 5%, which was more sluggish compared to recent quarters. The numbers did not include sales from Amazon’s annual Prime Day discount event, which took place last month.

Olsavsky said the company came up short on revenue growth in North America because customers were still being cautious with their spending and trading down to cheaper items.

Amazon said sales from its advertising business—which mostly comes from ad listings on its online platform—jumped by 20%. Earlier this year, it began placing ads on movies and TV shows found on its Prime Video service to bring in extra dollars.

Last month, Prime Video also became one of three companies to sign an 11-year media rights deal with the National Basketball Association.

But the company faces other challenges.

This week, federal regulators said Amazon was responsible for the recall of more than 400,000 hazardous products that were sold on its platform by third-party sellers and shipped using its fulfillment service.

Amazon is also facing an antitrust lawsuit, which alleges it has been overcharging sellers and stifling competition.

Amazon’s results followed other earning reports this week from tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta and Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

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Amazon reports boost in quarterly profits but misses revenue estimates (2024, August 2)
retrieved 2 August 2024
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As fatal virus looms over bald eagles, NJ conservationists fight to keep the bird on the endangered species list

August 1, 2024

The New Jersey Conservation Foundation, a major environmental group working within the state, is pleading with wildlife officials not to remove bald eagles from the endangered species list as planned, saying a virus that’s killing peregrine falcons will inevitably prove lethal to eagles.

In June, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection said the bald eagle has made such a remarkable recovery that it was proposing to remove it from the state’s endangered species list. There was only one nesting pair in the state in 1970. As of last year, there were 267.

But Emile DeVito, who wrote Monday to the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, asked officials not adopt the change because of a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that is striking peregrine falcons along the coast. DeVito is manager of science and stewardship for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

“The peregrine falcons are dying left and right,” DeVito told The Inquirer. “And they are dead within 24 hours of showing symptoms. What we know about it from Michigan and Wisconsin is that it’s going to be huge problem.”

DeVito wrote in his letter, which was sent as a formal comment on the endangered species list removal proposal, that the HPA is “already serious and ongoing” and removing the bald eagle from the list would weaken protections.

‘Actively discussing the issue’

Larry Hajna, a spokesperson for the DEP, said that Fish and Wildlife officials are aware of the spread and impact of HPAI on wildlife.

“It is premature for us to take a position regarding the potential impacts HPAI is having on our wildlife, including bald eagles, but we are actively discussing the issue and reviewing data,” Hajna wrote in an email.

DeVito said he had learned of the spreading flu to eagles at a briefing of New Jersey’s Endangered and Nongame Species Advisory Committee. HPAI is a highly contagious disease known as bird flu or avian flu, transmitted from bird to bird. It does not normally infect humans, but it has sporadically.

At the briefing, Fish and Wildlife officials said that 44 N.J. nesting peregrine falcons have been identified so far this year as falling ill with the disease and that 21 adults, or nearly half, had died. Losses were higher in coastal nests. The loss ratios are similar in Virginia and Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The New Jersey Conservation Foundation initially supported the state’s removal of the bald eagle from the endangered list, which the peregrine falcon remains on. DeVito was on the Endangered and Nongame Species Advisory Committee for 25 years but recently left it.

“We shouldn’t be delisting them now,” DeVito said. “This is highly transmittable.”

He said that the avian flu has already infected some eagles and that the birds get the disease while eating infected prey.

“It’s not widespread yet,” DeVito said. “But it’s just starting to impact them. Chances are next year, there’s going to be a big hit to the population.”

Seeking public comment

The delisting of bald eagles is part of a larger rule proposal currently open for public comment, Hajna said. The bald eagle is just one of many species being proposed for either listing or delisting for various categories in a process that the state takes on sporadically. The public can comment on the rule through Aug. 24.

If adopted, the rule would move the bald eagle from New Jersey’s endangered species list and categorize it as a species of special concern. The bald eagle would still remain listed as a non-game species, meaning it cannot be hunted.

DeVito believes it would be easier to remove the bald eagle from consideration for now. It could then be reintroduced separately for delisting later if the avian flu runs its course.

Bald eagles have made a remarkable comeback nationwide since DDT was banned in 1972. They were removed from the federal government’s endangered species list in 2007. Pennsylvania has also removed the raptor from its endangered or threatened list, but it is protected under the state’s Game and Wildlife Code.

It was not immediately clear of the strain of avian flu that is striking peregrine falcons and bald eagles.

But the Centers of Disease Control reports that the HF or H5N1 bird flu, forms of HPAI, has struck nearly 10,000 wild birds across the U.S. in wild birds, including bald eagles. It has struck at least 593 bald eagles since early 2022, according to an Inquirer analysis of the data. Two cases were logged in New Jersey this year in Mercer and Bergen Counties.

William Bowerman, a professor of wildlife ecology and environmental toxicology, wrote a letter “with urgency” to the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June, stating that he’s studied bald eagles in Michigan and the Great Lakes for 40 years, and said his findings indicate the first regional population declines since the DDT era. Bowerman wrote that the decline is, “likely caused by” HPAI.

2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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As fatal virus looms over bald eagles, NJ conservationists fight to keep the bird on the endangered species list (2024, August 1)
retrieved 1 August 2024
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How large turkey vultures remain aloft in thin air

August 1, 2024

turkey vulture — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Mountain hikes are invigorating. Crisp air and clear views can refresh the soul, but thin air presents an additional challenge for high-altitude birds. “All else being equal, bird wings produce less lift in low density air,” says Jonathan Rader from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, U.S., making it more difficult to remain aloft.

Yet this doesn’t seem to put them off. Bar-headed geese, cranes and bar-tailed godwits have recorded altitude records of 6,000 m and more. So how do they manage to take to the air when thin air offers little lift? One possibility was that birds at high altitude simply fly faster, to compensate for the lower air density, but it wasn’t clear whether birds that naturally inhabit a wide range of altitudes, from sea level to the loftiest summits, might fine-tune their flight speed to compensate for thin air.

“Turkey vultures are common throughout North America and inhabit an elevation range of more than 3,000 m,” says Rader, so he and Ty Hedrick (UNC-Chapel Hill) decided to find out whether turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) residing at different elevations fly at different speeds depending on their altitude.

They publish the discovery in Journal of Experimental Biology that turkey vultures fly faster at altitude to compensate for the lack of lift caused by flying in thin air.

First the duo needed to select locations over several thousand meters’ altitude, so they started filming the vultures flying at the local Orange County refuse site (80 m above sea level). “Vultures on a landfill… who would have guessed?”, chuckles Rader.

Then they relocated to Rader’s home state of Wyoming, visiting Alcova (1600 m) before ending up at the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie (2200 m).

At each location, the duo set up three synchronized cameras with a clear view of a tree that was home to a roosting colony of turkey vultures, ready to film the vultures’ flights in 3D as they flew home at the end of the day.

“Wyoming is a famously windy place and prone to afternoon thunderstorms,” Rader explains, recalling being chased off the roof of the University of Wyoming Biological Sciences Building by storms and the wind blurring movies of the flying birds as it rattled the cameras.

Back in North Carolina, Rader reconstructed 2,458 bird flights from the movies, calculating their flight speed before converting to airspeed, which ranged from 8.7 to 13.24m/s. He also calculated the air density at each location, based on local air pressure readings, recording a 27% change from 0.89kg/m³ at Laramie to 1.227 kg/m³ at Chapel Hill.

After plotting the air densities at the time of flight against the birds’ airspeeds on a graph, Rader and Hedrick could see that the birds flying at 2,200m in Laramie were generally flying ~1m/s faster than the birds in Chapel Hill. Turkey vultures fly faster at higher altitudes to remain aloft. But how do they achieve these higher airspeeds?

Rader returned to the flight movies, looking for the tell-tale up-and-down motion that would indicate when they were flapping. However, when he compared how much each bird was flapping with the different air densities, the high-altitude vultures were flapping no more than the birds nearer to sea level, so they weren’t changing their wingbeats to counteract the effects of low air density.

Instead, it is likely that the 2,200 m high birds were flying faster simply because there is less drag in thin air to slow them down, allowing the Laramie vultures to fly faster than the Chapel Hill birds to compensate for generating less lift in lower air density.

More information:
Turkey vultures tune their airspeed to changing air density, Journal of Experimental Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.246828

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The Company of Biologists

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How large turkey vultures remain aloft in thin air (2024, August 1)
retrieved 1 August 2024
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Gamers soak up the nostalgia as ‘World of Warcraft’ returns to China

August 1, 2024

Beloved titles from the fantasy epic "World of Warcraft" to shooting game "Overwatch" went offline in China in January 2023 — Beloved titles from the fantasy epic “World of Warcraft” to shooting game “Overwatch” went offline in China in January 2023.

Millennial gamers soaked up the nostalgia and embarked on fresh adventures in a land of orcs, mages and elves Thursday as “World of Warcraft” came back online in China.

Beloved titles from the fantasy epic to shooting game “Overwatch” went offline in China in January 2023 after a contract dispute between the American developer Blizzard and local partner NetEase—prompting a wave of mourning and anger from fans.

But the two firms reached a new deal this year, announcing the titles would return to Chinese screens sequentially—starting with “World of Warcraft” (WoW) on August 1.

And at an internet cafe in the capital Beijing, his fellow gamers tapping furiously on multicolored keyboards, 35-year-old Wei Jia told AFP he felt “nostalgic” as soon as he had heard that WoW was coming back.

Playing the game, he said, was “like taking a trip down memory lane.”

“It was a game that really touched me,” he explained. “I would stay up all night for a whole week to play it.”

He admitted that his age meant he couldn’t “play that hard anymore.”

“But I still really like it.”

Massively popular worldwide, particularly in the 2000s, WoW is an online multiplayer role-playing game set in a fantasy world where good battles evil.

"World of Warcraft" is known for its immersive and addictive gameplay, and players can rack up hundreds of hours of game time — “World of Warcraft” is known for its immersive and addictive gameplay, and players can rack up hundreds of hours of game time.

It is known for its immersive and addictive gameplay, and players can rack up hundreds of hours of game time.

Liu Haoran, a 30-year-old media worker, said he had come to the internet cafe near his office as soon as he heard that WoW was back online.

His fondest memories of the game are the friends he made as he explored the vast, mythical world of Azeroth, he explained, as dragons and other mythical creatures flew past on his screen.

“It’s a game I’ve played for a long time,” Liu, who said he started playing WoW in 2004, told AFP.

“I have a lot of real-life friends on it, and I’ve made a lot of friends playing it. Many of my childhood friends are on it and there are many memories.”

‘Good memories’

Among those memories are an evening spent with a girl stargazing in Nagrand—a land traditionally sacred to the orcs—as well as watching New Year’s Eve fireworks with friends in picturesque Stormwind City.

The return of Blizzard titles is a welcome boost for NetEase, which like many of the country's tech giants has had a rough few years after a government crackdown on the industry — The return of Blizzard titles is a welcome boost for NetEase, which like many of the country’s tech giants has had a rough few years after a government crackdown on the industry.

“We would chat and greet each other and spend the New Year’s countdown in World of Warcraft,” he said.

“There were a lot of good memories like that.”

Others had been busy recruiting fellow players for battle ahead of the relaunch.

“In just a few days, we have more than 100 members in our WeChat group and we are all waiting for the Chinese servers to come online,” Wang Jing, 44, told AFP over the phone.

“Over the years playing WoW, we have gone from young people to middle-aged people,” he said.

“Our children have grown up… and we once again have time and energy to reunite in World of Warcraft and make new friends.”

The return of Blizzard titles is a welcome boost for NetEase, which like many of the country’s tech giants has had a rough few years after a government crackdown on the industry.

Gamer Wei told AFP he had been “disgusted” with the falling-out between Blizzard and NetEase and that he’d felt “regret” when it went offline.

At an internet cafe in the capital Beijing, gamers tapped furiously on multicoloured keyboards — At an internet cafe in the capital Beijing, gamers tapped furiously on multicolored keyboards.

But he’s “happy” it’s back.

“Because we can play together again and talk about the past. All in all, it’s good.”

Citation:
Gamers soak up the nostalgia as ‘World of Warcraft’ returns to China (2024, August 1)
retrieved 1 August 2024
from https://techxplore.com/news/2024-08-gamers-nostalgia-world-warcraft-china.html

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