Articles by Luke James, Contributor

Luke is a freelance technology journalist who has been covering hardware and semiconductors since 2020. He began his career at All About Circuits and has since contributed to EE Power and Laptop Mag. Luke has a particular interest in semiconductors, microelectronics, and the industry shifts that shape the devices we use every day. Above all, he loves making complex technology accessible to experts and enthusiasts alike. Luke's interest in hardcore computing can be traced back to his university studies, when he responsibly spent his very first student loan payment on a custom-built gaming rig equipped with a GTX 780 Ti.

Articles by: Luke James

The global helium shortage is a direct threat to the chipmaking supply chain — disruption impacts critical processes, high-capacity HDDs, and alternative supplies are plagued by delays

By Luke James published 31 March 26

Premium Some industry analysts expect it will take Qatar around five years to regain lost capacity.

One of JavaScript's most popular libraries compromised by hackers — Axios npm package hit in supply chain attack that deployed a cross-platform RAT

By Luke James published 31 March 26

An attacker compromised the npm account of a lead Axios maintainer on March 30, and used it to publish two malicious versions of the widely used JavaScript HTTP client library.

Revolut Bank ordered to hand over details of more than 300 Sky TV subscribers connected to piracy operation — TV provider expected to pursue subscribers who paid for illicit 'IPTV is Easy' service in unprecedented move

By Luke James published 30 March 26

Ireland's High Court granted Sky a Norwich Pharmacal order compelling Revolut Bank UAB to hand over the names, addresses, and banking details of 304 subscribers

Chinese chip industry leaders admit the country lags five to ten years behind in AI data center chips — AI demand is straining equipment and talent supply

By Luke James published 30 March 26

Senior Chinese semiconductor executives said AI-driven demand is creating bottlenecks across equipment, passive components, and workforce capacity.

New Cambridge computer chip material could slash AI energy use.

New Cambridge human brain-inspired chip could slash AI energy use — new type of memristor has roughly a million times lower switching current than conventional devices

By Luke James published 29 March 26

Cambridge researchers have published a paper describing a new type of hafnium oxide memristor that operates at switching currents roughly a million times lower than conventional oxide-based devices.

Tokyo consortium tests placing data centers under railway overpasses — passing trains introduce severe thermal and vibration challenges

By Luke James published 29 March 26

The modular unit packages servers, cooling, and power supply equipment into a container-sized enclosure that can be deployed without constructing a full building.

Samsung preps PCIe 5.0 QLC SSD with a controller based on open-source RISC-V architecture — BM9K1 delivers speeds up to 11.4 GB/s for 'personal AI workloads'

By Luke James published 28 March 26

The BM9K1 reportedly delivers sequential read speeds of up to 11.4 GB/s, which Samsung said is 1.6 times faster than its predecessor, the PCIe 4.0 BM9C1.

Sony SF-G series TOUGH 64 GB memory card

Sony freezes memory card orders in Japan amid growing storage crisis — the company attributes the cause to ‘shortage of semiconductors’

By Luke James published 28 March 26

Sony Japan has announced that it will no longer accept orders for almost its entire lineup of CFexpress and SD memory cards as of March 27.

A rendering of Meta’s planned data center in Louisiana

Meta to fund seven new natural gas power plants to fuel AI data centers — Entergy partnership to deliver 7 gigawatts of power for Louisiana AI facility

By Luke James published 28 March 26

Meta is paying for the construction of seven new natural gas plants to supply its largest data center, massively expanding the fossil fuel infrastructure underpinning its AI buildout.

Air Liquide opens Taiwan factory as helium shortage tightens around chip makers — 200 specialized helium containers stranded near the Strait of Hormuz

By Luke James published 27 March 26

French industrial gas supplier Air Liquide opened a new factory near the port of Taichung, Taiwan, on Wednesday, as the semiconductor industry faces a worsening helium shortage.

SMIC sent chipmaking tools to Iran's military, Trump administration officials say — report claims exchange began a year ago, 'almost certainly included technical training on SMIC's semiconductor technology'

By Luke James published 27 March 26

The officials said the collaboration "almost certainly included technical training on SMIC's semiconductor technology."

Micron's $24 billion Singapore fab could need 500 transformers, more than double the output of any single manufacturer — heavy electrical infrastructure the latest AI buildout bottleneck

By Luke James published 25 March 26

Micron’s planned $24 billion NAND flash expansion in Singapore will require 400 to 500 power transformers, which is more than double the 100 to 150 units a standard wafer fab typically needs.

Google's TurboQuant reduces AI LLM cache memory capacity requirements by at least six times — up to 8x performance boost on Nvidia H100 GPUs, compresses KV caches to 3 bits with no accuracy loss

By Luke James published 25 March 26

In benchmarks on Nvidia H100 GPUs, 4-bit TurboQuant delivered up to an eight-times performance increase in computing attention logits compared to unquantized 32-bit keys.