Round-up
Highlights
- Nvidia pivots again: a lower-spec Blackwell GPU priced at $6.5–8 k will ship as early as June to keep the company in China’s AI-server market after Washington blocked the H20 accelerator 1.
- Europe turns from fabs to brains: TSMC will open a Munich Design Centre this autumn, cementing Germany as its R-&-D bridgehead while Dresden construction continues 2.
- Washington doubles-down on EUV controls: Trump-campaign tech adviser David Sacks called the China EUV ban “the single most important export control,” a sharp contrast to the warmer tone Beijing sought only four days earlier in our 23 May edition 34.
Other developments
- German telco-software consortium seeks EU funds for a €20 bn “AI gigafactory” 5
- Oracle will buy about $40 bn of Nvidia GB200s for OpenAI’s Texas “Stargate” data-centre 6
- ASML disclosed another $61 m of share buy-backs in the week to 23 May 7
- Tom’s Hardware confirms Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D (a.k.a. B40) as the Blackwell part headed for China 8
- Researchers demonstrated a frequency-doubled dual-comb source on-chip at 420 nm—useful for integrated quantum-sensor schemes 9
Did you know? Nvidia’s downgrade still skirts right up to the 1.7-1.8 TB/s memory-bandwidth ceiling the U.S. now enforces—just 15 % of the H20’s throughput but exactly the level investment bank Jefferies predicted regulators would allow 1.
In-depth
1 · Government & Corporate Policy
-
EUV embargo stays on the books
-
EU pitches “AI gigafactories”
- Deutsche Telekom, SAP, Ionos and Schwarz are bidding to host one of five EU-funded centres; expressions of interest are due 20 June 5.
- Chips and cheap power are explicit gating items—good news for European foundry and packaging suppliers.
-
Design—not wafers—becomes Europe’s lure
- TSMC’s Munich hub will help automotive and industrial clients co-optimise advanced nodes and 3-D packaging 2.
- The move follows Intel’s and GlobalFoundries’ separate German expansions, signalling an ecosystem approach rather than a single-supplier model.
-
China-specific GPUs mark new compliance template
- Nvidia’s Blackwell cut-down chip eschews HBM and CoWoS, showing how export-control rules are now baked into product definition 1.
2 · Economics, Finance & Business Outlook
-
$40 bn OpenAI cluster order
- Oracle will lease 400 k GB200 accelerators to OpenAI at its Abilene, TX site, financed by $9.6 bn in JPMorgan loans 6.
- The multiyear pipeline provides Nvidia a buffer against potential export-curb revenue hits.
-
ASML keeps feeding investors
- The lithography leader repurchased ~93 k shares (avg €657) between 19–23 May, part of a €12 bn 2022–25 plan 7.
- Buy-backs have trimmed free-float by 2.4 % since January, a lever as EUV demand faces geopolitical overhangs.
-
AI infrastructure gold-rush in Europe
- Germany’s proposed AI data-centre would tap the EC’s new €20 bn fund, with Luxembourg, France and Spain also angling for projects 5.
- The scramble could tighten regional demand for high-bandwidth memory and liquid-cooling gear in 2026-27.
-
Share-price read-through
- Tom’s Hardware estimates the B40’s bill-of-materials at half the H20’s, suggesting Nvidia may defend margin even at a lower ASP 8.
3 · Technology & R-&-D
-
Blackwell 6000D/B40 revealed
-
Integrated UV dual-comb chip
- NIST researchers doubled a chirped dual comb to 420 nm on-chip, opening doors for compact quantum sensors and trace-gas meters 9.
- The approach claims phase-stability advantages over discrete laser architectures.
-
Design-enablement shift to Europe
- TSMC’s Munich centre will staff mixed-signal and RF teams to help auto Tier-1s migrate to 3 nm and chiplet-based ADAS 2.
- ESD-safe labs and a 500-petaflop internal cluster are planned.
-
AI-ready data-centre spec takes shape
- The German consortium’s gigafactory plan includes on-premise 400 MW solar-plus-battery installation—hinting at the power-infrastructure dimension of future chip demand 5.
-
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-launch-cheaper-blackwell-ai-chip-china-after-us-export-curbs-sources-say-2025-05-24/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tsmc-will-open-european-chip-design-centre-munich-germany-2025-05-27/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/euv-lithography-restrictions-china-must-continue-trump-aide-says-2025-05-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/german-consortium-talks-build-ai-data-centre-handelsblatt-reports-2025-05-27/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.reuters.com/business/oracle-buy-40-billion-nvidia-chips-openais-us-data-center-ft-reports-2025-05-23/ ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/05/26/3088038/0/en/ASML-reports-transactions-under-its-current-share-buyback-program.html ↩︎ ↩︎
-
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidia-rtx-pro-6000d-b40-blackwell-gpus-reportedly-set-to-supersede-banned-h20-accelerators-in-china ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎