Articles by Jon Martindale, Freelance Writer

After building his first computers in his teens, Jon Martindale has spent the past two decades covering the latest advances in technology. From displays to PC components, blockchain to AI, and tablets to standing desk accessories, Jon has covered just about every facet of the tech space in his varied career. He has bylines at Forbes, USNews, Lifewire, DigitalTrends, PCWorld, and a range of other sites. He brings that same level of expertise and professional insight to Toms Hardware.Away from writing, Jon is an avid reader, board gamer, and fitness enthusiast. He lives in rural Gloucestershire with his wife, two children, and French Bulldog cross.

Articles by: Jon Martindale

The AI tokenmaxxing party is crashing over spiraling costs — leaked consulting firm audio suggests no one is sure how to measure AI effectiveness

By Jon Martindale published 25 June 26

Premium "Leadership [...] are still asking the question of whether they're getting value from what we're spending."

US Secures Netherlands for Pax Silica Alliance in key win for strategic chip alliance — tension remains over MATCH Act restrictions

By Jon Martindale published 24 June 26

Premium Inside the US Pax Silica Alliance with the Netherlands.

US pulls the 'kill-switch' on Anthropic's Fable 5 AI models, sending global allies scrambling — European and Canadian leaders alarm allies over sudden export bans

By Jon Martindale published 17 June 26

PREMIUM World leaders are concerned that projects can be cut off by arbitrary U.S. regulations.

A rally against AI data centers in Michigan, one of six protests held across the state.

AI is set to consume up to 600 billion gallons of water by 2030 — rising energy consumption primarily to blame as data center power demands rise

By Jon Martindale published 11 June 26

Premium As GPU power demands almost double with every generation, most water usage will come where the power is generated.

Qualcomm Roundtable Interview transcript — SVP of Compute and Gaming talks Snapdragon C, RTX Spark, and the agentic AI future

By Paul Alcorn published 4 June 26

Premium Qualcomm has Snapdragon C to compete in the exciting low-cost laptop market, but it's also looking to build an entire agentic AI ecosystem on Qualcomm silicon.

Acer Predator Atlas 8 gaming handheld on a desk

Intel Arc G3 interview transcript — Intel's Senior Product Director talks new handheld chips, Arrow Lake Refresh, and RTX Spark

By Jake Roach published 2 June 26

Premium Intel's Nish Neelalojanan talked with us about Intel's shifting strategy for G3, budget CPUs for more affordable systems, and the state of the PC industry.

Satya Nadella attending the Elon Musk Sam Altman trial.

AI costs begin to bite as agents may increase token demand by 24 times, says Goldman Sachs report — Uber and Microsoft among companies feeling the bite of tokenized billing

By Jon Martindale published 27 May 26

Premium Microsoft and Uber are both considering refining their AI strategies as costs mount.

Samsung and other semiconductor officials.

Memory makers brace for hydrogen fluoride pricing shock as Hormuz blockade impacts supply chain — key etching and cleaning material faces sharp cost increase amid trade disruption

By Jon Martindale published 20 May 26

Premium Chemical companies have absorbed costs so far this year, but they're about to dump them onto South Korean memory makers.

St. Paul, Minnesota, State capitol, Data Center Moratorium Now rally.

Survey shows that nearly half of Americans don't want new data centers built near their homes — 47% oppose the construction of new AI data centers in their neighborhood

By Jon Martindale published 6 May 26

Premium According to a new survey conducted by Ipsos at the end of last year, almost half of all queried Americans said they would oppose an AI data center being built near their community.

Cartoon image of a human worker outpacing a robot.

Talent over tokens: AI models are becoming more expensive to run, and productivity gains are limited — efficient workers might be the solution to strained budgets

By Jon Martindale published 30 April 26

Premium Token costs rise as the industry reckons with AI's impact on the workforce.

Satya Nadella and Sam Altman on a video conference call.

OpenAI and Microsoft's alliance fractures as cloud exclusivity deal ends — Azure's single-provider monopoly for ChatGPT is officially over

By Jon Martindale published 28 April 26

Premium OpenAI and Microsoft outline terms.

How a cavalcade of blunders gave unauthorized users access to Claude Mythos — restricted model accessed by third parties, thanks to knowledge from data breach

By Jon Martindale published 24 April 26

Premium It's hard for AI tools to prevent social engineering and third-party hacks.

Young girl holding anti-ai signs at a protest.

Local political revolts threaten to derail US data center projects — mounting delays are already costing AI hyperscalers billions

By Jon Martindale published 17 April 26

Premium Rejected proposals, moratoriums, cancelled rezoning, rallies, and fliers are all hampering the AI build out.

Anthropic's Claude Mythos might be the best overall AI model for cybersecurity, but cheaper models can attain similar results, research shows — cross-examination of the frontier model raises questions on uptime and reliability

By Jon Martindale published 14 April 26

Premium Lightweight models could offer much of the same, at a much lower price.

Anthropic's Claude Mythos isn't a sentient super-hacker, it's a sales pitch — claims of 'thousands' of severe zero-days rely on just 198 manual reviews

By Jon Martindale published 10 April 26

Premium Many of the "thousands" of bugs and vulnerabilities it found are in older software, or are impossible to exploit.

Jensen Huang explaining the size of something to the press.

China's homegrown silicon suppliers gain traction as Nvidia struggles to get its chips into the market — Huawei, Cambricon and more step up to fill crucial market gap

By Jon Martindale published 2 April 26

Premium Nvidia's market share in the Chinese data center market has shrunk, with a wealth of options coming from Huawei, Cambricon and more, bringing their total share up to 41%.

US Senators call for a halt to Nvidia GPU exports in the wake of the Super Micro scandal — looming Chip Security Act may put a wrench into Huang's China ambitions

By Jon Martindale published 26 March 26

Premium They don't believe CEO Jensen Huang's claims, either.

The Super Micro AI accelerator smuggling scandal proves how cut-throat the global AI race has become — as global trade evolves, so does export control evasion

By Jon Martindale published 25 March 26

Premium Yih-Shyan 'Wally' Liaw has since been ousted from the board, while the company's share price crashed.

Nvidia disputes allegation it is preparing a custom version of Groq inferencing chip for China [Updated]

By Jon Martindale published 18 March 26

Premium According to a new report, Nvidia's Groq inferencing chips are set to head to China for export, following approval of its H200 AI accelerators.

The ongoing Strait of Hormuz blockage will impact the semiconductor and AI industries with Aluminum, Helium and LNG shortages — and with no timeline for re-opening, supply chains face significant challenges

By Jon Martindale published 13 March 26

Premium If you can't make the chips and you can't run the turbines, you can't run an industry.

OpenClaw AI agent craze sweeps China as authorities seek to clamp down amid security fears — adoption surges as state-run enterprises are barred from use

By Jon Martindale published 11 March 26

Premium The agentic AI boom comes under scrutiny by Beijing

New Commerce Department AI export rules could be seismic change for CSPs and data center operators — buying American GPUs at scale means committing to building American infrastructure

By Jon Martindale published 9 March 26

Premium The Trump administration is considering new export controls for high-end AI chips, with the suggestion that it may start requiring investment in U.S.

AI creates jobs, data from bank survey shows — companies with wide AI deployments and investments are more likely to be hiring than those that don't

By Jon Martindale published 6 March 26

Premium European data suggests the firms making the most use of AI are actively hiring more people, too.

Jensen Huang toasting the camera person with a beer.

Nvidia invests $4 billion into photonics firms in a bid to bolster data center interconnect supply chains — Lumentum and Coherent investment to fund U.S. R&D and manufacturing facilities, supports capacity rights and future access

By Jon Martindale published 4 March 26

Premium Into the photonic future.

AI boosted US economy by 'basically zero' in 2025, says Goldman Sachs chief economist — 'We think there's been a lot of misreporting of the impact that AI investment had on GDP growth'

By Jon Martindale published 24 February 26

Premium US companies are spending big, but most of that money goes overseas.

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