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The Google Quantum AI team published a paper in Science, announcing that a technique called magic state cultivation reduces errors by about 40 times on the Willow processor, producing logical fidelity of 99.99% for T states. Magic states are one-time resources required to run useful quantum programs, consumed with each use; according to estimates cited by Google, the cost of producing magic states can account for up to 95% of a quantum computer's total capacity, leaving very limited space for actual computation.The previous standard approach was magic state distillation proposed by physicists Sergei Bravyi and Alexei Kitaev in 2004, which required a large number of qubit factories dedicated solely to this task. Google researchers proposed a cheaper cultivation route in 2024, which behaves more like a filter: injecting rough magic states into a small area of the chip, running a series of checks on them, discarding all attempts found to be defective, and allowing the passers to gradually expand. In the experiments, only about 8% of attempts passed all checks, meaning that more than 90% of attempts had to be discarded for each clean state retained.The cultivation technology is one of the supports for Gidney's 2025 estimate that RSA-2048 encryption could be broken by fewer than a million noisy qubits, a reduction of 20 times from the 20 million estimated in 2019. This experiment used up to 54 of the 105 qubits in Willow, with the paper noting that breaking the RSA-2048 key requires magic states with an error rate of about one in ten billion, which is about a million times cleaner than this result.

As chip stocks' market value evaporates by $1 trillion, ETF investors are pouring billions into the dip.The VanEck Semiconductor ETF attracted over $430 million in inflows over the past three days, while the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares ETF saw approximately $3.8 billion in inflows this week, setting a record. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has cumulatively dropped 12% over six days.

According to Bloomberg, ByteDance is close to reaching an agreement with MediaTek to procure semiconductors for data centers. Sources familiar with the matter say that the Chinese social media company is in deep discussions with MediaTek regarding the supply of custom chips, which will be used to operate ByteDance's data centers.Sources indicate that MediaTek will provide an unspecified number of application-specific integrated circuits, which are chips customized for the client's platform. If the deal is finalized, ByteDance could become MediaTek's second-largest customer for such chips after Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and it would help the Taiwanese chipmaker compete with Qualcomm. Due to the private nature of the arrangements, the sources requested anonymity.

The world's largest foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), announced that driven by a surge in global demand for artificial intelligence processors, its net profit in the third quarter increased by 69% year-on-year, reaching a historic high and exceeding market expectations.TSMC stated that from July to September, net profit rose to 763.1 billion New Taiwan dollars (approximately 23.59 billion US dollars), surpassing the institutional expectation of 746.3 billion New Taiwan dollars.

Analyst Murphy posted on platform X, stating that as of October 15, 2026, Bitcoin has fallen to around $81,000 on October 9, 12, and 15, repeatedly testing the same support area. The latest round of declines, combined with U.S. inflation exceeding expectations, rising market concerns about the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy further, and weakening U.S. stocks, has put overall pressure on risk assets.Murphy noted that from the on-chain adjusted realized loss data, the scale of losses corresponding to the three dips shows a decreasing trend: the loss on October 12 was less than that on October 9, and while the loss on October 15 was larger than on October 12, it was still lower than on October 9. October 9 appears to be a peak where short-term price-sensitive chips concentrated their exit; during the second dip, market sentiment was more cautious, and the willingness to sell was not strong; the third decline, under macroeconomic negative influences, again forced some swing chips to stop-loss and exit. Therefore, the current market is closer to a gradual clearing of swing chips rather than a full-blown panic sell-off. If the proportion of short-term holders' losses remains around 31%, below the historical cumulative average of 42.7%, it indicates that the clearing of chips may not be sufficient, and further volatility and selling pressure may still occur. Next, it should be observed whether the scale of realized losses continues to converge: if the price maintains near the current support area and the release of losses gradually weakens, it indicates that passive selling is decreasing, and a phase adjustment may be nearing its end; if the scale of losses expands significantly again, it indicates that the market still needs to undergo a more thorough turnover of chips.

According to Gate's market data, global technology hardware stocks continue to decline due to expectations of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and difficulties in AI financing. South Korea's Samsung Electronics fell over 7%, SK Hynix dropped more than 8%, dragging the KOSPI index down by more than 6% at one point. The Nikkei 225 index fell over 3% during the session. Despite strong earnings reports from Samsung and ASML, investor confidence remains under pressure.CoreWeave's stock price plummeted, and bond prices reflect financial distress. The U.S. CPI in September reached a 5-month high, intensifying expectations for interest rate hikes.

According to The Information, NVIDIA and ChipAgents have launched an artificial intelligence chip design evaluation project.

On October 12, Huawei held a Kirin chip technology exchange meeting in Shanghai, marking the first chip-level technical communication meeting in six years, and systematically introduced the mass production progress of logic folding. Xu Songyu, head of the semiconductor business wireless terminal chip product management department, introduced that the Kirin chip has entered the testing phase in 2027, and the test results meet expectations; since 2023, the cumulative shipment of terminal products based on the Kirin chip has exceeded 100 million.The Kirin 9050 series is the first Kirin chip built on logic folding technology. Xu Songyu explained that logic folding is not simply stacking multiple chips, but rather a systematic design from a three-dimensional perspective at the beginning of the design, treating multiple dies as a complete chip for collaborative design. This series features over 50 million hybrid bonds, with effective signal interconnections exceeding 5 million, and a transistor density increase of 53.5%. The CPU large core efficiency of the Kirin 9050 Pro has improved by 41%, and the NPU computing power has increased by 140%; the current hybrid bonding pitch is 1.5 microns, and Huawei plans to further reduce it to 1 micron by 2027.The architecture of the Kirin 9050 Pro announced at the meeting includes the new generation Lingxi CPU, Maliang GPU, and Da Vinci architecture NPU, among others. This series is aimed at Mobile Agent, adopting a collaborative architecture of a large brain and a small brain on the edge, supporting the operation of a 30B MoE large model on the edge. The new generation Lingxi CPU features a 9-core 16-thread design, with a 23% improvement in multi-core performance, and the new generation Maliang GPU has a 40% performance increase.

Financial Associated Press reported on October 12, citing market research firm Counterpoint Research, that the ongoing construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to squeeze the supply of storage chips, putting pressure on costs and supply in consumer electronics. Preliminary data shows that global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2026 are expected to decline by 20% year-on-year, reaching the lowest level for the same period since 2012. The storage chip crisis has impacted the smartphone market for the second consecutive quarter, with rising chip costs increasing the overall bill of materials, leading manufacturers to raise retail prices. Since 2026, global smartphone retail prices have cumulatively increased by about 20%.Samsung remains the global leader, with its market share rising to 23% in the third quarter, although shipments declined by 3% year-on-year, marking the largest share increase among major manufacturers. Apple's share rose to 22%, marking its first time surpassing 20% in the third quarter, but shipments declined year-on-year. The absence of the base model iPhone 18 this year resulted in a lower channel distribution scale in the first month of new product launches compared to the previous year's iPhone 17 series. The iPhone 18 Pro series performed better than its predecessor in China and India.Xiaomi's shipments in the third quarter declined by over 30% year-on-year, with its market share dropping to 10%. Both OPPO and vivo saw their shipments decline by over 20% year-on-year, with shares falling to 9% and 8%, respectively. Counterpoint senior analyst Shilpi Jain stated that consumers are holding onto their existing devices for longer and are considering more refurbished devices. Counterpoint indicated that global smartphone shipments are unlikely to see a significant recovery before improvements in storage chip costs and supply.

Phoenix Technology cited a report from IDC seen by Reuters, stating that in the first half of 2026, NVIDIA's market share in China's data center AI chip market dropped to 34%. IDC data shows that from January to June this year, NVIDIA's AI accelerator shipments in the Chinese market were 678,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 44%. The report attributed the change in market share to U.S. export control restrictions limiting product supply, as well as domestic competitors in China expanding their market share.Among the 11 Chinese chip manufacturers tracked by IDC, 9 experienced year-on-year growth in shipments. Huawei's AI accelerator shipments reached 572,000 units in the first half of the year, up from over 300,000 units in the same period last year, accounting for 28% of the overall market. Alibaba's chip design division, T-head, holds a market share of 7%, Cambricon has 5%, Baidu's Kunlun has 4%, and Haiguang Information has 3%.NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly criticized the U.S. government's export restrictions, stating that the policy forces NVIDIA to cede the $50 billion AI chip market in China to Huawei. IDC did not specify which products make up the 34% share, nor did it clarify whether it includes chips such as B200 and B300. As of the time of publication, NVIDIA had not responded to requests for comment.

On Tuesday, the global semiconductor sector faced a massive sell-off, with the decline intensifying. The trigger was Broadcom CEO Hock Tan stating that AI investments have a "casino-like" nature. He mentioned in Singapore on Monday that many investors do not even know what they are investing in and that investors have set extremely high expectations, only to find that it is just like being in a casino.The world's two largest memory chip manufacturers, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, saw their stock prices plunge by 8.8% and 9.2% at one point during the morning session, dragging down South Korea's main stock index by 7%. The two companies account for about half of the weight in the Korea Composite Stock Price Index, and their stock prices have cumulatively dropped by about 15% over the past five days. The Taiwan Weighted Stock Index, dominated by chip stocks, fell by 2.5%, with TSMC down 2%; Micron Technology dropped nearly 4% overnight, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index fell by 2.7%.

According to CoinGlass data, in the past 24 hours, 10 exchanges have liquidated approximately $803 million in leveraged positions, with long positions accounting for $694 million, representing 86%, affecting a total of 172,100 traders. About $595 million, nearly three-quarters of the total for the day, was liquidated in the last 12 hours, as the South Korean KOSPI index fell by more than 6%, and Bitcoin briefly dropped below $81,000. The largest single liquidation was a $9.65 million Bitcoin long position on Binance, which was forcibly closed at around $81,773, with Binance accounting for half of the total liquidation volume.Bitcoin topped the list with $181 million in liquidations, followed closely by Ethereum with $178 million, despite its market capitalization being much smaller than Bitcoin's; SOL positions lost $60 million, ZEC $24 million, and NEAR $22 million. Stock-related contracts then made the list, with perpetual contracts tracking U.S. storage chip manufacturer SanDisk liquidating $19.09 million, slightly above HYPE's $19.04 million and XRP's $18.78 million. These perpetual contracts allow traders to bet on stock prices without an expiration date on cryptocurrency exchanges, with contracts for SK Hynix, Micron, and the triple-leveraged U.S. semiconductor ETF SOXL also appearing on the heatmap, with SOXL liquidating $7.21 million.The aforementioned losses coincided with a sell-off in the Seoul market, where Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each fell by about 8%, as the market worried about AI-related valuations and competition from Chinese storage chip manufacturers.

According to a report by Central News Agency citing Reuters, Microsoft announced the launch of its third-generation self-developed AI chip, Maia 300, with plans to deploy over 1 million units next year to support internal AI services. The small chip responsible for key computing functions uses TSMC's 2-nanometer process. The Maia 300 can handle code writing and perform complex business tasks on behalf of users. The previous generation of chips has been used to run Microsoft's internal AI models and the OpenAI models provided through Microsoft Azure cloud computing services.Microsoft is taking a different technological approach compared to NVIDIA. The NVIDIA AI accelerator uses a large computing chip surrounded by high-bandwidth memory chips; the Maia 300 core processing unit is composed of small chips, with the small chips responsible for key computing functions using TSMC's 2-nanometer process, while other small chips use the lower-cost 3-nanometer process to handle data transmission out of the processor and transfer data to other locations within the system.The Maia 300 will be installed in cabinets, with each cabinet accommodating 96 chips and consuming about 167 kW of power. In contrast, NVIDIA's latest GB300 AI server cabinet is configured with 72 GPUs and consumes about 142 kW of power. Microsoft stated that it plans to deploy the Maia 300 on a large scale starting next year, reaching several gigawatts. Microsoft previously indicated that it expects its capital expenditures to exceed $175 billion this year.

Market news reports that Microsoft (MSFT.O) is preparing to deploy several gigawatts of chips in data centers.

Cryptocurrency analyst Darkfost stated that currently, above the price level of approximately $83,000, 53% of the invested capital is concentrated. This means that if Bitcoin is purchased at this level, the holding cost will be better than that of more than half of the investors.The range of $84,000 to $85,000 is the largest chip distribution cluster, and many investors react at this critical level, so this range is clearly the core resistance that Bitcoin must break through. Looking below, the range of $79,000 to $77,000 may become a support level. If the price cannot effectively break through $84,000-$85,000, the market may first retest this support area; however, once it stabilizes above the densely concentrated chip area, it means that the cost pressure for most holders has been digested, and the subsequent upward resistance will be significantly reduced.

Elon Musk stated that although he currently "doesn't know how to manufacture microchips," he believes his company may find better manufacturing methods. He pointed out that during visits to competitors' facilities, he did not see much custom equipment, while his company has extensive experience in manufacturing custom equipment and is capable of improving the manufacturing process.

According to Nikkei Asia, chip design software leader Synopsys is seeking to collaborate with Chinese large language model developers, planning to use the AI version of its tools to help Chinese companies develop chips faster, and stated that it will carry out related work within the scope of tightening artificial intelligence and semiconductor export controls in Washington.The report states that Synopsys expects a revenue of $11.15 billion for the fiscal year 2027, with collaborations with OpenAI and Amazon driving its artificial intelligence business. Synopsys is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and is a global leader in chip design software.