In short: Intel has signed on as the primary foundry partner for Elon Musk’s Terafab, a $25 billion joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI targeting a terawatt of AI compute per year, handing the struggling chip giant the marquee customer it has been searching for since pivoting to a foundry-first strategy.

On 7 April 2026, Intel announced it is joining the Terafab project, becoming the foundry partner for the most ambitious semiconductor facility ever proposed in the United States. The announcement came two weeks after Musk first unveiled Terafab at the North Campus of Giga Texas in Austin, a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI that claims it will produce one terawatt of AI compute every year. Intel’s role is to contribute its most advanced process node, packaging expertise, and manufacturing scale to make that claim real. For Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan, who has spent the past year attempting to rebuild Intel around an external foundry business, the deal is the most significant external customer win the company has landed since he took the job.

What Terafab is claiming to build

Terafab is designed as a vertically integrated semiconductor complex,  covering chip design, lithography, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and testing under a single roof,  with a stated goal of producing between 100 billion and 200 billion custom AI and memory chips per year. The initial buildout targets 100,000 wafer starts per month, with ambitions to eventually scale to one million wafer starts per month at full capacity. The project involves two separate facilities on the Giga Texas campus: one dedicated to chips for automotive and humanoid robotics applications, including Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, its Cybercab robotaxi programme, and the Optimus robot line; and a second for high-performance AI data centre infrastructure and specialised processors for orbital deployments.

That orbital component is central to the project’s rationale. SpaceX, which completed its acquisition of xAI in an all-stock deal in February 2026, creating a combined entity valued at approximately $1.25 trillion, is building out a constellation of space-based AI satellites internally designated AI Sat Mini. Musk has said 80% of Terafab’s compute output will be directed toward that orbital infrastructure, with the remaining 20% for ground-based applications. The full cost of the project has been cited as between $20 billion and $25 billion, though independent analysts have been sharply sceptical of whether that figure is remotely sufficient to meet the stated production targets. A note from Bernstein Research estimated the true capital required to hit one terawatt of annual compute at approximately $5 trillion,  more than 70% of the total annual United States federal budget.

Intel’s role, and what the deal is worth

Intel will contribute its 18A process node, the company’s most advanced logic manufacturing technology, currently ramping to high-volume production at Intel’s fabrication plants in Arizona and Oregon. Intel’s 18A is a 1.8-nanometre-class node, placing it in the same tier as the most advanced processes currently entering commercial production globally, and it represents the most sophisticated semiconductor capability manufactured entirely within the United States. Intel’s statement on joining Terafab was direct: “Intel is proud to join the Terafab project with SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to help refactor silicon fab technology.” The company added: “Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics.”

Tan’s post on X was more personal in its framing. “Elon has a proven track record of reimagining entire industries,” he wrote. “This is exactly what is needed in semiconductor manufacturing today. Terafab represents a step change in how silicon logic, memory and packaging will get built in the future. Intel is proud to be a partner.” Intel’s shares rose approximately 4% on the announcement, closing at $52.91. The market reaction reflects how significant the deal is for Intel’s foundry ambitions: in its most recent full year, Intel Foundry generated just $307 million in external customer revenue, a figure that makes the company a distant also-ran against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which generates tens of billions annually from external customers. Terafab, if even partially realised, would transform Intel Foundry’s commercial profile entirely.

Intel’s recovery, and what this bet requires

Tan inherited an Intel in acute crisis. The company had lost ground to TSMC and AMD across almost every major product category, its own manufacturing roadmap had slipped repeatedly, and its foundry business, the effort to manufacture chips for external customers as TSMC does, had attracted little meaningful interest beyond government-supported contracts under the US CHIPS and Science Act. Tan’s restructuring has been aggressive: thousands of redundancies, a sharper focus on Intel’s 18A and 14A process nodes as the foundation of the foundry pitch, and a deliberate effort to position Intel’s domestic manufacturing capability as a geopolitical differentiator at a moment when US policymakers are intensely focused on reducing dependence on Taiwanese chipmaking.

Terafab is the clearest expression yet of where that pitch lands. The CHIPS Act tailwinds, the Trump administration’s desire to see advanced semiconductor production in the United States, and the specific demand Musk’s companies represent for high-volume, US-manufactured chips at the leading edge, all of those forces converge in this partnership. Whether Intel’s 18A can deliver at the yields and volumes Terafab’s targets require is a separate question. The node has been in development for several years and is only now entering volume ramp; the gap between a controlled high-volume manufacturing ramp and the production scales Terafab envisions remains very large. Chipmakers building the largest foundries in the world require several years of construction and billions of dollars before the first wafer is processed. The scale of capital commitments now characterising AI infrastructure investment gives some context for what serious execution at Terafab’s claimed targets would actually require.

The credibility problem Terafab has not solved

The scepticism around Terafab is structural, not merely financial. Building a 2nm-class fabrication facility capable of 100,000 wafer starts per month costs roughly $25-35 billion on its own, according to Tom’s Hardware’s analysis of Bernstein’s research, meaning the entire stated Terafab budget is roughly enough to build a single fab operating at a fraction of the claimed full-capacity scale. Reaching one million wafer starts per month would require dozens of such facilities. The $20-25 billion figure appears to represent initial construction capital for the first phase, rather than the cost of the stated ambition.

There is also the question of the companies at the table. SpaceX-xAI’s internal situation has been turbulent: all 11 of xAI’s original co-founders have now left the company since the SpaceX acquisition, a rate of attrition that has raised questions about the organisation’s technical continuity. Musk’s companies have a documented history of announcing timelines for facilities and products that subsequently stretch by years. Tesla’s Cybertruck, Optimus, and Full Self-Driving have each missed multiple committed dates without affecting the company’s willingness to make new commitments. None of this disqualifies Terafab, Musk’s companies have also delivered on goals that were widely dismissed, most notably SpaceX’s orbital launch programme, but it establishes why analysts are not taking the one-terawatt headline at face value.

What the partnership means for the chip industry

Intel’s arrival at Terafab lands at a moment when the chip industry is navigating a broader restructuring of who makes what and for whom. The rise of custom AI silicon, Amazon’s Trainium, Google’s TPUs, Microsoft’s Maia, has been eating into the share of AI workloads that run on Nvidia hardware. Nvidia’s response has been to open its NVLink Fusion interconnect to third-party silicon, including Marvell’s custom AI accelerators, a strategy designed to keep custom chip buyers inside Nvidia’s ecosystem even as they move off pure Nvidia hardware. Terafab represents something different: a vertically integrated attempt to produce custom silicon at a scale that has no precedent outside of the established foundry giants. If the project proceeds anywhere near its stated ambitions, it would add a third major domestic US semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem to a landscape currently dominated by TSMC’s Arizona expansion and Samsung’s Texas operations.

For Intel, the strategic logic is clear. As hyperscalers and technology companies increasingly pilot non-Nvidia chips for AI training and inference workloads, the market for foundry services from a domestically situated, leading-edge manufacturer is growing precisely when Intel has positioned itself to serve it. Whether Terafab is the vehicle that finally validates that positioning, or another ambitious announcement that tests the distance between Musk’s projections and physical reality, will become clearer as construction begins and wafer starts are counted rather than promised. The capital flowing into AI infrastructure at this scale has a way of turning implausible timelines into achieved ones, and Intel, for the first time in years, is positioned to benefit if it does.

After several months of teasing, Sony has decided to fill us in a bit more information about its upcoming True RGB TV.

Although only a little bit more.

We still don’t have an idea of what the TV looks like (but we assume it’ll look like any other Sony TV), and there’s no word on pricing yet, but we do know they’ll be multiple TVs as the press alert refers to “Bravia TVs”. And on top of that you won’t have too long to wait. They’re set for release this spring.

Decades in the making

This latst release provides a nugget of more information, just a few days after Sony and TCL came to an agreement over the new TV venture they’ve established together that’s rather nicely called Bravia Inc.

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Sony comments that its True RGB technology intends to set a new benchmark for RGB LED picture performance. Unlike conventional approaches to the technology, True RGB is said to use independently controlled red, gree, and blue light sources (diodes) that can apparently deliver “purer colour, greater brightness, and the largest colour volume ever achieved in Sony’s home TV history”

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Sony introduces Sony’s proprietary “True RGB” technology – the naming convention behind the breakthrough display technology powering upcoming Sony’s True RGB televisions and setting a new benchmark for RGB LED picture performance. By combining the individual RGB LEDs with the strengths of both Mini LED and OLED into one TV, we’re potentially looking at the ultimate TV viewing experience.

Sony’s hope with its True RGB technology is that picture quality looks more natural, more three dimensional, and more accurate, whether you’re viewing in a bright living room or otherwise.

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What makes Sony’s True RGB tick is the “proprietary optical structure and precision backlight control” that’s driven by a new RGB backlight driver. You can add “faithful colour reproduction from wider viewing angles” to the list of plusses that Sony’s True RGB backlight is bringing to the table.

Sony says that its True RGB is the culmination of more than 20 years of its “innovation in LED control”, fomr the first RGB light sources introduced in the QUALIA 005 in 2004, through to the flagship and much praised Backlight Master Drive that launched in 2016.

Similar to how James Bond will Return, additional details will be shared in the “near future”. Trusted Reviews has been invited to a Sony Home Cinema event in May. It’s looking likely that we’ll be seeing the future of Sony’s TVs there and then. Will it be a brighter and colourful one?

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Product designer Matty Benedetto discovered some clips of passengers stranded in airport security lines and clogged airport terminals. He determined that his next trip needed to be less of a nightmare, so he set out to design a carry-on suitcase that would make the entire experience a little less stressful. More specifically, he decided to create one from scratch using his 3D printers.

He tailored the dimensions of his carry-on to normal sizes so that it would pass through security inspections without a second thought. Then he divided the bag’s main body into two parts with overlapping edges to provide strength, and printed a few test copies with some colorful leftover filament to check how the pieces fit together. Putting it all together was like snapping a load of large plastic bricks into place, except he added metal hinges for the lid and a telescoping handle constructed from off-the-shelf components. During a print halt, ball bearings were inserted into the wheels to ensure that they roll smoothly without the need for any additional equipment.

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After determining the basic shape, he went on to the details that would make a long wait more bearable. A flat panel folds out from the front and includes a little latch to secure it in place, allowing you to prop up your laptop during a layover. A MagSafe mount appears next to it to hold your phone, allowing you to watch shows or check your messages without taking your hands off the wheel. When you’re stuck waiting for a delayed flight, it’s usually a good idea to have some food with you, so he included a little jar that twists open easily from the side, allowing you to access your goodies without having to unzip the main zipper.

On a long journey, coffee can pose a serious security issue, spilling all over the place and causing a huge mess. To avoid this kind of disaster, he created a cup holder with a sophisticated gimbal inside that maintains your drink level even when the bag tilts. On the outside, he incorporated a rotating dial that displays the flight number, weather prediction, destination details, and a few emergency contacts at a glance. And for further peace of mind, he designed the feet to detach so you can put an AirTag inside each one, which is entirely out of sight but provides some extra protection against losing your luggage.

The first major test was security, when his luggage breezed through the X-ray machine with no one blinking an eyelash about its printed design. Next, he had to get it into a regional flight, which proved difficult until he gave it a gentle nudge into the overhead bin, where it slipped in without incident. The smooth rolling was due to the ball bearings, and the entire setup weighed about the same as a conventional carry-on.

However, when he arrived at his destination, things became a little more problematic. There were hairline cracks all along the main seam, one of the wheels had broken free during the journey, the snacks in the jar had turned to crumbs, and a couple of the smaller attachments had vanished; not a bad outcome, all things considered.

The Russian military is once again hacking home and small office routers in widespread operations that send unwitting users to sites that harvest passwords and credential tokens for use in espionage campaigns, researchers said Tuesday.

An estimated 18,000 to 40,000 consumer routers, mostly those made by MikroTik and TP-Link, located in 120 countries, were wrangled into infrastructure belonging to APT28, an advanced threat group that’s part of Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU, researchers from Lumen Technologies’ Black Lotus Labs said. The threat group has operated for at least two decades and is behind dozens of high-profile hacks targeting governments worldwide. APT28 is also tracked under names including Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, Tsar Team, Forest Blizzard, and STRONTIUM.

Technical sophistication, tried-and-true techniques

A small number of routers were used as proxies to connect to a much larger number of other routers belonging to foreign ministries, law enforcement, and government agencies that APT28 wanted to spy on. The group then used its control of routers to change DNS lookups for select websites, including, Microsoft said, domains for the company’s 365 service.

“Known for blending cutting-edge tools such as the large language model (LLM) ‘LAMEHUG’ with proven, longstanding techniques, Forest Blizzard consistently evolves its tactics to stay ahead of defenders,” Black Lotus researchers wrote. “Their previous and current campaigns highlight both their technological sophistication and their willingness to revisit classic attack methods even after public exposure, underscoring the ongoing risk posed by this actor to organizations worldwide.”

To hijack the routers, the attackers exploited older models that hadn’t been patched against known security vulnerabilities. They then changed DNS settings for select domains and used the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol to propagate them to router-connected workstations. When connected devices visited the selected domains, their connections were proxied through malicious servers before reaching their intended destination.

From ancient lunar lava to personal tributes, the new images released from the Artemis II space mission capture fresh perspectives of our celestial neighbour.

Yesterday (7 April), NASA released the first images of the moon captured by the Artemis II astronauts during their historic test flight.

The Artemis II mission took off last week (1 April) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning an approximately 10-day mission for NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Yesterday’s images were taken on 6 April during the crew’s seven-hour pass over the lunar far side – the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years – and provide a fresh look at Earth’s closest celestial neighbour.

From an eclipse to ancient lava, here is just a handful of some of the most interesting images captured by the Artemis II crew so far.

Near and far

A picture capturing two-thirds of the moon. Towards the bottom of the image, the Orientale basin can be seen. North-east of the Orientale, seen as a dark spot, is the Grimaldi crater. Image: NASA

One of the crew’s most striking images captures two-thirds of the moon, showcasing the “intricate features of the near side”, according to NASA. The 600-mile-wide impact crater, the Orientale basin, lies along the transition between the near and far sides and can be seen at the bottom of the image.

The round black spot north-east of Orientale is the Grimaldi crater, known for its exceptionally “dark mare lava floor and heavily degraded rim”.

In-space eclipse

The moon fully eclipsing the sun, as taken by the Artemis II crew. Image: NASA

One of the most unique images taken by the Artemis II crew captures the moon fully eclipsing the sun. The corona of the sun forms a glowing halo around the moon, while light reflected off Earth forms a faint, glowing outline of the near side of the moon.

Nearly 54 minutes of totality – when the moon completely blocks the bright face of the sun – was observed by the crew.

Stars are also visible around the spectacle, which are typically too faint to see when imaging the moon, but are readily visible with the moon in darkness.

“This unique vantage point provides both a striking visual and a valuable opportunity for astronauts to document and describe the corona during humanity’s return to deep space,” according to NASA.

A different perspective

Earth in a crescent phase showing the cutoff between day and night on the planet, as seen from the Artemis II spacecraft as it conducted the lunar flyby. Image: NASA

Another image captured during the lunar flyby shows Earth split between daytime and nighttime.

Earth can be seen in a crescent phase, with sunlight coming from the right of the image. On the day side, swirling clouds are visible over the Australia and Oceania region.

Meanwhile, the lines of small indentations seen on the moon’s surface to the left of the image are secondary crater chains. These structures are formed by material ejected during a violent primary impact.

Ancient lava

A close-up snapshot of the moon as the crew approached for the flyby. The Aristarchus crater is the bright white dot in the middle of a dark grey lava flow at the top of the image. Image: NASA

In one close-up shot of the moon’s surface, taken as the NASA Orion spacecraft approached for the lunar flyby, an interesting ancient remnant can be observed.

According to NASA, dark patches visible on the top third of the lunar disc represent ancient lava.

Meanwhile, the bright white dot in the middle of a dark grey lava flow at the top of the image is the Aristarchus crater, which measures at a depth of 2.7km – making it deeper than the Grand Canyon.

A personal tribute

A picture of the Orientale basin, seen in the middle right of the image. The first crater named by the crew, called Integrity, lies just above the centre of the image. North of the Orientale at the top right corner of the image is the Glushko crater. To the north-west of that is the second crew-named crater, seen as a bright white spot, which the crew has called Carroll. Image: NASA

During the mission’s lunar flyby observation period, the Artemis II crew snapped an image showing the rings of the Orientale basin, one of the moon’s youngest and best-preserved large impact craters.

According to NASA, these concentric rings offer scientists a rare window into how massive impacts shape planetary surfaces, “helping refine models of crater formation and the moon’s geologic history”.

At the 10 o’clock position of the Orientale basin, two smaller craters are visible. The Artemis II astronauts submitted names for these two craters for approval by the International Astronomical Union: the first being Integrity, named after the crew’s spacecraft; and the second being Carroll, named after mission commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife.

“A number of years ago, we started this journey in our close-knit astronaut family and we lost a loved one,” said mission specialist Hansen to mission control at the time of the proposal. “And there is a feature in a really neat place on the moon, and it is on the near side/far side boundary. In fact, it’s just on the near side of that boundary, and so at certain times of the moon’s transit around Earth, we will be able to see this from Earth.

“And so we lost a loved one. Her name was Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie. And if you want to find this one, you look at Glushko, and it’s just to the northwest of that, at the same latitude as Ohm, and it’s a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call it Carroll.”

‘A human story’

Eight days into the Artemis II mission, and a number of remarkable moments have been observed in humanity’s latest major space voyage, including the crew surpassing the record for human spaceflight’s farthest distance at 248,655 miles from Earth.

But for many, the human side of the voyage – such as the crew’s sentimental proposal to name a crater – have stuck as dually important alongside the mission’s technical feats.

This rings true with award-winning Irish scientist Dr Niamh Shaw, who was present on the Kennedy Space Center’s media lawn for the historic launch.

“Space has always been a kind of compass in my life,” she told SiliconRepublic.com. “It has a way of stripping everything back, reminding me of what matters, of how small we are and how extraordinary it is that we are here at all.

“It keeps me grounded in my questions. In curiosity. In wonder. And also in responsibility. Because one of the things space teaches us, very clearly, is that there is no rescue mission coming for Earth. No one arriving to solve our problems.”

Shaw told us that what struck her just as much as the launch itself was “what happened afterwards”.

“The level of interest, the appetite for connection … People want to understand, to feel part of it, to ask questions,” she explained.

“I haven’t stopped: media calls, messages, Zooms with my Town Scientist families.

“And I found myself trying to share it in a way that made it personal for them – sending photos, describing moments, answering questions,” she added.

“Because I genuinely believe that’s where the real impact lies. Not just in the engineering achievement, extraordinary as it is. But in how it reaches people.

“In how it shifts perspective, even slightly. In how it reminds us that we are all part of something much bigger and that the story of space exploration is, ultimately, a human story.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Microsoft has pushed a server-side fix for a known issue that broke the Windows Start Menu search feature on some Windows 11 23H2 devices.

In a Windows release health update (WI1273488) seen by BleepingComputer, Microsoft said these problems have affected only a small number of users since April 6 and are caused by a server-side Bing update aimed at improving search performance.

While the company says these problems are recent, there have been reports of similar issues surfacing online for months, including claims that the Start Menu displays blank search results that are still clickable.

To address this known issue, Microsoft has pulled the buggy Bing update and expects the search issues to subside as the fix rolls out to affected customers.

“An investigation determined that the problem coincided with a server-side Bing update designed to improve search performance. To mitigate the issue, the server-side Bing update was rolled back, and reports of search failures are steadily decreasing,” Microsoft said.

“This issue will resolve automatically as the server-side fix is gradually rolled out to affected devices. To receive this fix, make sure the device is connected to the internet and that Web Search has not been disabled by Group Policy.”

More Windows Start Menu issues

This isn’t the first known Start Menu issue to impact Windows customers in recent years. In November, Microsoft shared a temporary workaround for another bug that was causing the Start Menu, File Explorer, and other key system components to crash when provisioning systems with cumulative updates released since July 2025, due to XAML packages not registering in time after installing the update.

On impacted systems, affected users experience a wide range of problems, including Start menu crashes and critical error messages, missing taskbars even when Explorer is running, crashes of the core ShellHost (Shell Infrastructure Host or Windows Shell Experience Host) system process, and Settings app silently failing to launch.

Microsoft is still working on developing a permanent fix, but hasn’t provided a timeline for when a solution will be available. Meanwhile, affected customers must manually register the missing XAML packages.

In May, Microsoft also silently fixed an issue that broke Start Menu jump lists for all apps on Windows 10 22H2 systems, and in June 2023, it addressed a bug that caused Windows Search and the Start Menu to become unresponsive.

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