It\u2019s already been a tumultuous year for the U.S. semiconductor industry.<\/p>\n
The semiconductor industry plays a sizable role in the \u201cAI race\u201d that the U.S. seems determined to win, which is why this context is worth paying attention to: from Intel\u2019s appointment of Lip-Bu Tan to CEO \u2014 who wasted no time getting to work trying to revitalize the legacy company \u2014 to Joe Biden proposing sweeping new AI chip export rules on his way out of office that never came to fruition. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at what\u2019s happened in the first half of 2025. <\/p>\n
June<\/p>\n
Intel appoints new leadership<\/p>\n
June 18 \u2013 <\/strong>Intel announced four new leadership appointments<\/a> that Intel says will help it move toward its goal of becoming an engineering-first company again. Intel announced a new chief revenue officer in addition to multiple high-profile engineering hires.<\/p>\n Intel to begin layoffs<\/p>\n June 17 \u2013 <\/strong>Intel will begin to lay off a significant chunk of its Intel Foundry staff<\/a> in July. The company plans to eliminate at least 15%, and up to 20%, of workers in that business unit. These layoffs aren\u2019t a shock: It was rumored back in April, and Intel\u2019s CEO Lip-Bu Tan has said he wants to flatten the organization.<\/p>\n Nvidia won\u2019t report on China<\/p>\n June 13 \u2013 <\/strong>Nvidia isn\u2019t counting on the U.S. backing off of its AI chip export restrictions anytime soon. After the company took a financial hit from the newly imposed licensing requirements on its H20 AI chips, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company will no longer include the Chinese market<\/a> in future revenue and profit forecasts.<\/p>\n AMD acquires the team behind Untether AI<\/p>\n June 6 \u2013 <\/strong>AMD makes another acquisition \u2014\u00a0this time focused on talent. The company acqui-hired the team behind Untether AI<\/a>, which develops AI inference chips, as the semiconductor giant continues to round out its AI offerings.<\/p>\n AMD is coming for Nvidia\u2019s AI hardware dominance<\/p>\n June 4 \u2013 <\/strong>AMD continued its shopping spree. The company acquired AI software optimization startup Brium<\/a>, which helps companies retrofit AI software to work with different AI hardware. With a lot of AI software being designed with Nvidia hardware in mind, this acquisition isn\u2019t surprising.<\/p>\n May<\/p>\n Nvidia lays out the impact of chip export restrictions<\/p>\n May 28 \u2013 <\/strong>Nvidia reported that U.S. licensing requirements on its H20 AI chips cost the company $4.5 billion in charges<\/a> during Q1. The company expects these requirements to result in an $8 billion hit to Nvidia\u2019s revenue in Q2.<\/p>\n AMD acquires Enosemi<\/p>\n May 28 \u2013<\/strong> AMD kicks off its acquisition spree. The semiconductor company announced that it acquired Enosemi<\/a>, a silicon photonics startup. Enosemi\u2019s tech, which uses light photons to transmit data, is becoming an increasing area of interest for semiconductor companies.<\/p>\n Tensions start to flare between China and the U.S.<\/p>\n May 21 \u2013 <\/strong>China\u2019s Commerce Secretary didn\u2019t like the U.S.\u2019s guidance, issued on May 13, that warned U.S. companies that using Huawei\u2019s AI chips \u201canywhere in the world\u201d was a U.S. chip export violation. The commerce secretary issued a statement that threatened legal action<\/a> against anyone caught enforcing that export restriction.<\/p>\n Intel may be starting to offload its non-core units<\/p>\n May 20 \u2013 <\/strong>Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan seemingly got right to work on his plan to spin out Intel\u2019s non-core business units. The semiconductor giant is reportedly looking to offload its networking and edge units<\/a>, which makes chips for telecom equipment, and was responsible for $5.4 billion of the company\u2019s 2024 revenue.<\/p>\n The Biden administration\u2019s AI Diffusion rule is officially dead<\/p>\n May 13 \u2013<\/strong> Just days before the Biden administration\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule was set to go into place, the U.S. Department of Commerce formally rescinded it<\/a>. The DOC said that it plans to issue new guidance in the future, and in the meantime companies should remember that using Huawei\u2019s Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world is a violation of U.S. export rules.<\/p>\n A last-minute reversal<\/p>\n May 7<\/strong>: Just a week before the \u201cFramework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion\u201d was set to go into place, the Trump administration plans on taking a different path. According to multiple media outlets, including Axios<\/a> and Bloomberg<\/a>, the administration won\u2019t enforce the restrictions when they were supposed to start on May 15 and is instead working on its own framework.\u00a0<\/p>\n April<\/p>\n Anthropic doubles down on its support of chip export restrictions<\/p>\n April 30:\u00a0<\/strong>Anthropic doubled down on its support<\/a> for restricting U.S.-made chip exports, including some tweaks to the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, like imposing further restrictions on Tier 2 countries and dedicating resources to enforcement.\u00a0An Nvidia spokesperson shot back<\/a>, saying, \u201cAmerican firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in \u2018baby bumps\u2019 or \u2018alongside live lobsters.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Planned layoffs at Intel<\/p>\n April 22:\u00a0<\/strong>Ahead of its Q1 earnings call, Intel said it was planning to lay off more than 21,000 employees<\/a>. The layoffs were meant to streamline management, something CEO Lip-Bu Tan has long said Intel needed to do, and help rebuild the company\u2019s engineering focus.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Trump administration further restricts chip exports<\/p>\n April 15:\u00a0<\/strong>Nvidia\u2019s H20 AI chip got hit with an export licensing requirement<\/a>, the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The company added it expects $5.5 billion in charges related to this new requirement in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year. The H20 is the most advanced AI chip Nvidia can still export to China in some form or fashion. TSMC and Intel reported similar expenses the same week.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nvidia appears to talk its way out of further chip exports<\/p>\n April 9:\u00a0<\/strong>Nvidia\u2019s CEO Jensen Huang was spotted attending dinner at Donald Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago<\/a> resort, according to reports. At the time, NPR reported<\/a> Huang may have been able to spare Nvidia\u2019s H20 AI chips from export restrictions upon agreeing to invest in AI data centers in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n An alleged agreement between Intel and TSMC<\/p>\n April 3:\u00a0<\/strong>Intel and TSMC allegedly reached a tentative agreement<\/a> to launch a joint chipmaking venture. This joint venture would operate Intel\u2019s chipmaking facilities, and TSMC would have a 20% stake in the new venture. Both companies declined to comment or confirm. If this deal doesn\u2019t come to fruition, this is likely a decent preview of potential deals in this industry to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n Intel spins off noncore assets, announces new initiative<\/p>\n April 1:\u00a0<\/strong>CEO Lip-Bu Tan got to work right away. Just weeks after he joined Intel, the company announced that it was going to spin off noncore assets<\/a> so it could focus. He also said the company would launch new products, including custom semiconductors for customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n March<\/p>\n Intel names a new CEO\u00a0<\/p>\n March 12:\u00a0<\/strong> Intel announced that industry veteran, and former board member, Lip-Bu Tan would return to the company as CEO<\/a> on March 18. At the time of his appointment, Tan said Intel would be an \u201cengineering-focused company\u201d under his leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n February<\/p>\n Intel\u2019s Ohio chip plant gets delayed again<\/p>\n February 28:\u00a0<\/strong>Intel was supposed to start operating its first chip fabrication plant in Ohio this year. Instead, the company slowed down construction<\/a> on the plant for the second time in February. Now the $28 billion semiconductor project won\u2019t wrap up construction until 2030 and may not even open until 2031.<\/p>\n Senators call for more chip export restrictions<\/p>\n February 3:\u00a0<\/strong>U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo), wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Nominee-Designate Howard Lutnick urging the Trump administration to further restrict<\/a> AI chip exports. The letter specifically referred to Nvidia\u2019s H20 AI chips, which were used in the training of DeepSeek\u2019s R1 \u201creasoning\u201d model.\u00a0<\/p>\n January\u00a0<\/p>\n DeepSeek releases its open \u201creasoning\u201d model<\/p>\n January 27:\u00a0<\/strong>Chinese AI startup DeepSeek<\/a> caused quite the stir in Silicon Valley when it released the open version of its R1 \u201creasoning\u201d model<\/a>. While this isn\u2019t semiconductor news specifically, the sheer alarm in the AI and semiconductor industries DeepSeek\u2019s release caused continues to have ripple effects on the chip industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n Joe Biden\u2019s executive order on chip exports<\/p>\n January 13:\u00a0<\/strong>With just a week left in office, former president Joe Biden proposed sweeping new export restrictions<\/a> on U.S.-made AI chips. This order created a three-tier structure that determined how many U.S. chips can be exported to each country. Under this proposal, Tier 1 countries faced no restrictions; Tier 2 countries had a chip purchase limit for the first time; and Tier 3 countries got additional restrictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei weighs in on chip export restrictions<\/p>\n