British chip designer Imagination Technologies Group PLC said that it has struck a new license agreement with Apple Inc, reviving a business relationship that had all but ended in the past few years.
The company, which was sold to Chinese buyout firm Canyon Bridge Capital Partners LLC (凱橋資本) for ￡500 million (US$661.42 million at the current exchange rate) in September 2017, yesterday said that it “formed a new multi-year license agreement under which Apple has access to a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property [IP] in exchange for license fees.”
Apple previously used graphics chips, or GPUs, in its iPhones and iPads that were designed by Imagination Technologies, but it moved to its own internal chip designs starting with the iPhone X in 2017 and the iPad Pro in 2018.
The US company also uses its own graphics processors in the Apple Watch.
It told Imagination Technologies in 2017 that it would stop using its IP in new products within two years.
When Imagination Technologies, then a public company, announced the loss of Apple as its biggest customer, its stock plummeted.
The British company in 2018 said that there might be “material uncertainty” regarding the future of the company if Apple did not pay any royalties on its latest generation of iPhones and iPads.
It is unclear if Apple paid those fees, but Imagination has argued that it would be “extremely challenging for Apple to design a GPU in a way that allows them not to pay royalties to Imagination.”
The company yesterday did not specify which IP the latest agreement covers, but Imagination’s IP related to graphics and artificial intelligence could be key to future Apple devices.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS