TechPowerUP NEWS

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Today Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic announced new strategic partnerships. Anthropic is scaling its rapidly-growing Claude AI model on Microsoft Azure, powered by NVIDIA, which will broaden access to Claude and provide Azure enterprise customers with expanded model choice and new capabilities. Anthropic has committed to purchase $30 billion of Azure compute capacity and to contract additional compute capacity up to one gigawatt.

For the first time, NVIDIA and Anthropic are establishing a deep technology partnership to support Anthropic's future growth. Anthropic and NVIDIA will collaborate on design and engineering, with the goal of optimizing Anthropic models for the best possible performance, efficiency, and TCO, and optimizing future NVIDIA architectures for Anthropic workloads. Anthropic's compute commitment will initially be up to one gigawatt of compute capacity with NVIDIA Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems.
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The Connectivity Standards Alliance announced today the release of Zigbee 4.0 and Suzi, the new brand for Zigbee's Sub-GHz feature, two major milestones in advancing the foundation of secure, interoperable, and scalable IoT connectivity with a range of optional features, enabling product manufacturers to choose the specific set that best fits their product's use case and needs. Together, these innovations mark the next evolution of Zigbee technology, building on decades of proven performance to deliver greater range, reliability, and security across global networks.

Strengthening Security, Range, and Interoperability
Zigbee 4.0 lays the groundwork for harmonizing traditional Zigbee and Smart Energy devices, delivering greater interoperability across universal networks. This release simplifies certification processes and supports enhanced information exchange, creating a more complete smart home solution. Comprehensive and proactive security updates aligned with evolving international security standards implement cryptographic agility and additional mechanisms to protect the network. Extending its capabilities beyond the 2.4 GHz band, Zigbee 4.0 introduces support for the European 800 MHz and North American 900 MHz PHY, providing increased signal strength, range, and coverage. Fully backward compatible with Zigbee 3.0 and Smart Energy, it ensures continuity with more than a billion Zigbee devices already deployed worldwide while introducing improvements to network stability, user experience, and device commissioning in dense networks.
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Intel's "Panther Lake" is set to debut in early 2026, with Intel and its partners unveiling the first laptop designs. The overall performance of the Panther Lake family appears to offer a modest improvement over the previous-generation Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake-H" mobile chips. Recent PassMark scores indicate that the Core Ultra X7 358H SKU—which features 4 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores, 4 LPE-Cores, and 12 Xe3 Cores—shows a slight enhancement over the comparable "Arrow Lake" SKU, the Core Ultra 7 255H, which includes 6 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores, and 2 LPE-Cores. In PassMark testing, the Panther Lake design exhibited a -1.4% performance in single-core score and nearly a 4% increase in multicore score. The regression in the single-core score is likely due to the use of an engineering sample in this benchmark.

"Panther Lake" also replaces "Lunar Lake," and here, performance improvements are much more substantial, while reportedly delivering similar or improved power efficiency, a particularly strong point of "Lunar Lake." Here, the Core Ultra X7 358H delivers a similar single-core performance, and more than 37% multicore score increase. Until the official launch, it is assumed that Intel hasn't shipped mass-production chips to vendors and OEMs. Additionally, the Core Ultra X7 358H SKU has a reported single-core boost of up to 4.8 GHz, compared to 5.1 GHz for the Core Ultra 7 255H and Core Ultra 9 288V SKUs. While there are IPC improvements in Panther Lake, the clock speed differences seem to be the primary factor in the performance variation. Furthermore, the software may not yet be optimized for the newest platform. To draw definitive conclusions, we will need to wait for the official launch and third-party performance benchmarks. Additionally, there is a comparison with the first-generation Core Ultra series "Meteor Lake," which you can check out below.

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A series of reports from Korean and Taiwanese outlets suggests growing pressure across the PC hardware industry as DRAM, NAND, and even NOR Flash prices continue to climb. Korea Economic Daily says NVIDIA, AMD, and other GPU makers are considering dropping some mid-to-high-end gaming cards where memory now makes up an unusually large share of total cost. Taiwanese PC brands, including ASUS, are also said to be looking at ways to reduce memory configurations in upcoming products. TrendForce warns that manufacturers may shift more production toward lower-margin models or raise prices across the board to cope with higher component costs. With most modern PCs, laptops, consoles, tablets, and phones now shipping with at least 16 GB of RAM, any further price spikes or supply shortages could force major brands to cut orders and increase retail pricing. Commercial Times reports that memory alone could add nearly NT$3,000 (about US $96) to basic office PCs next year.

According to Commercial Times, due to rising memory prices some motherboard makers and notebook ODMs vendors have paused new motherboard development or mass production. DRAM, NAND, and NOR Flash supply is tightening at the same time. DDR4 is becoming especially scarce as suppliers accelerate phase-outs and move mature-node capacity toward HBM and DDR5. WJ Capital Perspective estimates a DDR4 shortfall of around 70,000 wafers by the end of 2025, with 2026 unlikely to recover fully. NOR Flash demand is rising as well, driven by AI servers. Commercial Times says NVIDIA's GB200 NVL72 system already uses more than US $600 of NOR per rack, possibly reaching $900 within two years. This comes right after earlier reports that AMD is preparing GPU price increases and Samsung is raising memory prices by up to 60% due to tight supply.

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Philips Monitors is delighted to announce the launch of the new Philips Evnia 27M2N6501L, a 27-inch (26.5" / 67.3 cm) QD-OLED monitor packed with cutting-edge features for endless enjoyment in gaming, entertainment, content creation, and much more. Designed for everyone who wants incredible performance and exceptional value, this monitor brings together the best of both worlds, offering some of today's most exciting and in-demand technologies at a widely accessible price.

"With the new Philips Evnia 27M2N6501L, we wanted to create a monitor that feels like a true upgrade—not just in specs, but in experience," says César Reyes Acosta, Lead Product Manager, Consumer Monitors at MMD. "QD-OLED brings extraordinary clarity and contrast to every frame, while the 240 Hz refresh rate keeps gameplay seamless and fluid. Combined with its elegant, distinctive design, it's a monitor that captures the Evnia spirit—premium technology made inspiring and accessible to all."
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GlobalFoundries (NASDAQ: GFS) (GF) today announced the acquisition of Advanced Micro Foundry (AMF), a silicon photonics foundry based in Singapore, marking a pivotal step in GF's strategy to advance innovation and its leadership in silicon photonics. This acquisition will expand GF's silicon photonics technology portfolio, production capacity and research and development in Singapore, complementing its existing technology capabilities in the U.S. and unlocking new market opportunities with a broader set of datacenter and communication technologies.

GF's acquisition of AMF brings together AMF's manufacturing assets, extensive intellectual property and skilled talent to significantly expand GF's silicon photonics technology and establish the company as the largest silicon photonics pure-play foundry by revenue. Leveraging over 15 years of AMF's manufacturing expertise, GF will address demands in long-haul optical communications, computing, LiDAR and sensing on AMF's 200 mm platform in Singapore with plans to scale to 300 mm as market needs grow, ensuring reliable global supply for AI datacenters, communications and next-generation applications.
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PUBG developer PUBG Studios, is working on a new PvPvE extraction shooter set in the PUBG universe, and Krafton, the publisher and parent company of PUBG Studios, has just announced a closed alpha test between December 12 and 14 and December 19 and 21. The goal of the play test is to test early-game systems, combat pacing, extraction balance, and player progression. You can apply to be part of the playtest on the game's Steam Store page, but you'll need at least an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or an equivalent AMD GPU with at least 8 GB of VRAM. The playtest is also limited to North America, Europe, and Asia.

Black Budget is a first-person perspective extraction shooter with an emphasis on tactics and survival. Players will play as a Contractor, a mercenary hired for a classified mission on a mysterious island trapped in a time loop. Players will be tasked with investigating a covert operation across different runs. Game sessions will supposedly last up to 30 minutes, and take place on an open-world map with "varied biomes, points of interest, and underground facilities." The Anomaly responsible for the island's time loop also results in a shrinking playable area, but it's unclear what form that will take. The gameplay videos on the game's Steam page show players running through purple fog in the jungle and in what looks to be an industrial building, so it's safe to assume that this is the mechanic that will shrink the playable area.
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Tuxedo Computers, the brand known for making high-performance Linux laptops powered by its own TuxedoOS, has officially announced that it has stopped work on a planned Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Elite laptop, citing development difficulties as the reason for stopping the project. Some of the issues Tuxedo ran into were caused by incompatibility and a lack of driver support, while others were seemingly just platform limitations and a lack of platform maturity. One of the main complications Tuxedo cites is a lack of support for BIOS updates under Linux, but this lack of support also extends to virtualization, fan control, and high-speed USB4 ports, at least given the prospective launch timeline. Tuxedo also explains that the long battery life—the main draw of Arm-powered laptops—simply wasn't panning out on Linux.

Supposedly, Tuxedo would require "several more months" of development to be able to deliver a retail unit, which would mean anyone buying the Snapdragon Tuxedo laptop would immediately have very outdated hardware. Instead, Tuxedo has left the door open to being able to resume development on the system if and when it makes sense to do so. Tuxedo has, in the meantime, committed to contributing the device tree and any progress it has made during the unrealized laptop's development to the mainline Linux kernel so that the community can benefit from the work the company did manage to complete. There's also a non-zero chance that the development will be picked up by enterprising community members, eventually resulting in the maturation of Snapdragon support on Linux.
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Ubisoft first announced that it would be remaking Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time back in 2020, but the game has faced a troubled development cycle, with multiple delays since the reveal trailer and announcement—this includes when Ubisoft transferred the game from its studios in India to Ubisoft Montreal. Now, thanks to a recent Ubisoft earnings call, it seems as though the remake will launch as soon as Q4 2026. This timeline checks out, since four to five years in development makes sense for a AAA game franchise from a big studio.

The remake's supposed launch date was revealed by Ubisoft shortly after leaks claimed that the remake of Assassin's Creed Black Flag would launch around March 2026. Obviously, an official product roadmap from an investor briefing is far more trustworthy than a supposed leak, but it's important to also remember that Ubisoft originally planned to launch the Prince of Persia remake as soon as 2021, so it's anyone's guess whether it will actually materialize next year, even if the development timeline does make sense. Ubisoft also tipped an "unannounced title" that will also launch alongside the Sands of Time reboot.
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It's not news that Assassin's Creed Black Flag—one of the most beloved entries into the Assassin's Creed franchise—is getting a remake. Now, however, it seems as though we have a release date. According to reporting by Insider Gaming, the Assassin's Creed remake may launch as soon as March 31, 2026. This is in spite of Ubisoft's potentially rocky future, with a delayed earnings call earlier resulting in speculation that the game studio had been bought out, but had also started fully committing to a future with generative AI in games.

Ubisoft has not commented on the existence of the remake, but prior rumors suggested that it would be a remake in the more traditional sense, going so far as to suggest that the new game would rework game mechanics and transform the game by introducing more RPG gameplay elements. One of the things that made Black Flag such a rousing success was the way it handled sailing and exploration and the sheer wealth of content on offer. Meanwhile, many Assassin's Creed games that have launched since then have received criticism for their pacing and for feeling bloated.

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Microsoft has acknowledged that File Explorer on Windows 11 has performance issues, which is concerning for such a crucial application within an operating system. To address this, Microsoft is considering preloading File Explorer in the background to enable quicker access when users open the application. In the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7271 (KB5070307) available in the Dev & Beta channels, Microsoft stated, "We're exploring preloading File Explorer in the background to help improve File Explorer launch performance. This shouldn't be visible to you, outside of File Explorer hopefully launching faster when you need to use it."

If you prefer the traditional behavior, you can disable window preloading. Open File Explorer, navigate to Folder Options, select the View tab, and uncheck Enable window preloading for faster launch times. Microsoft is seeking feedback, and if you encounter any issues, you can report them in the Feedback Hub under Files, Folders and Online Storage > File Explorer Performance or Files, Folders and Online Storage > File Explorer.
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If you're in the market for a new laptop and notice that the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus boasts more TOPS than usual, it's because Dell is equipping its latest models with a discrete Neural Processing Unit (NPU) from Qualcomm. The Dell Pro Max 16 Plus features a Qualcomm AI-100 Ultra NPU, delivering 870 INT8 TOPS within a 150 W TDP envelope, along with 128 GB of LPDDR5X memory. This provides enough computing power and memory capacity to run local AI models with up to 120 billion parameters on the NPU alone, without needing additional memory or computing resources.

Dell is outfitting these laptops with robust internals, including up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX vPro CPU with 24 cores. Notably, Dell has removed the discrete GPU to accommodate the NPU, which offers more computing power and VRAM capacity than a traditional GPU. For local AI development, the system utilizes this NPU for all necessary tasks, paired with a CPU and 64 GB of memory. For graphics output, the system relies on the integrated GPU within the "Arrow Lake-HX" chip, which handles basic graphics tasks but isn't suitable for gaming. This design choice is logical, as the dedicated NPU is intended for AI developers and occupies the space, power, and heat dissipation capacity that a GPU would typically use.

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Seasonic is reportedly developing a passively cooled 1,000 W power supply for desktop PCs, according to Cowcotland. This unit is expected to join the PRIME Fanless TX family and might be named the Prime Fanless TX-1000. It is said to have an 80 Plus Titanium efficiency rating and could debut at CES 2026 in Las Vegas. Currently, Seasonic's fanless line tops out at 600 W and 700 W, including several PRIME Fanless TX and PX models, as well as a passively cooled Prime Titan. All these units share a compact ATX footprint of 170 × 150 × 86 mm, are fully modular, and are rated Titanium or Titanium Plus.

Reports suggest the new 1,000 W design would maintain the series efficiency, targeting about 94% at 50% load. It would also feature the same 100,000-hour MTBF and 12-year warranty typical for the family. However, key details remain unknown, such as whether the unit will support ATX 3.x, its connector configuration, and price/availability information. Don't expect it to arrive at the cheaper side since the Prime Fanless TX-700, a 700 W unit, is currently $378 at US retailers like Amazon.

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To mark the anniversary of the Xbox 360, NACON, designer of premium gaming accessories, is celebrating video game history alongside Xbox with a Revolution X Unlimited controller in the legendary Xbox 360 colors. Xbox and PC players can now pre-order this anniversary edition on nacongaming.com.

Nostalgic fans of the Xbox 360 era will be delighted to discover this controller that combines high performance with this design inspired by the iconic Xbox 360 console. Released in April 2025, the Revolution X Unlimited, the ultimate FPS controller for Xbox and PC, has been praised by critics and players alike. It is now available for pre-order in a retro color scheme, true to the spirit of the Xbox 360 console.
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During Foxconn's annual tech day in Taipei, the company announced that its $1.4 billion supercomputing center, built in partnership with NVIDIA, will be ready in the first half of 2026. The facility will become Taiwan's largest advanced GPU cluster, powered by NVIDIA Blackwell GB300 hardware and operated under Foxconn's new AI and cloud unit, Visonbay.ai. NVIDIA VP Alexis Bjorlin said that with GPU performance rising so quickly, many companies will find it more economical to rent compute capacity instead of building their own facilities. Foxconn plans to invest $2-3 billion per year in AI as Chairman Young Liu says the company can already build around 1,000 AI racks per week, a number set to rise next year.

In a separate announcement, OpenAI confirmed a new partnership with Foxconn to co-develop hardware for data centers. Foxconn will design and manufacture components such as cabling, power systems, and other infrastructure gear. While the agreement doesn't include purchase commitments, OpenAI will get early access to test the hardware. Foxconn's deepening collaboration with OpenAI mirrors the model it already uses with Google, AWS, and Microsoft. The partnership gives Foxconn better feedback on rack design and helps speed up new system development. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that demand for advanced AI infrastructure continues to exceed supply, and that new AI models will require new types of server racks, cooling systems, and power hardware.

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