FridayMar 20, 2026 10:00 am

Tech Stocks in Asia Sink as Attacks in Qatar Rattle Investors

Tech investor sentiment was rattled after Iran targeted Ras Laffan, an industrial city in Qatar that houses critical oil infrastructure and natural gas export facilities. As concerns about supply chains pivotal to the tech industry grew, tech stocks in Asia took a beating during the day’s trading on Thursday. Samsung Electronics stock slipped by 1.8% while SK Hynix slid by 2.23%. Seoul Semiconductor saw its shares decline by 2.53%. In Japan, the situation wasn’t any different. Advantest slid by more than 4% and Tokyo Electron declined by 1.99%. In China, MiniMax slipped by 10% while Knowledge Atlas recorded an 8%…

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ThursdayMar 19, 2026 10:00 am

Helium Shortage Puts Semiconductor Industry at Risk

Helium supply is tightening around the world as disruptions to the production of this critical gas in Qatar threaten industries that depend on helium. The production disruption was triggered by the Iran conflict. When Israel and the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury at the end of last month, Qatar halted production at Ras Laffan. This facility is the largest helium production plant globally and meets about one third of worldwide helium demand. As a result of this disruption, the price of helium has doubled on global markets. Prices could further hike by between 25% and 50% if production in Qatar…

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TuesdayMar 17, 2026 10:00 am

Oil Prices Could Rise Further as Iran Conflict Targets Export Hubs

Since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran a fortnight ago, oil prices have risen by approximately 40% and they are set to climb further as the conflict enters its third week. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut by the Iranians and Middle East oil export hubs increasingly coming into the crosshairs of this war, the supply disruptions are setting up oil for major price increases. The IEA’s announcement that about 400 million barrels of crude oil currently held in national reserves will be released onto the market has done little to quell unease in international oil…

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FridayMar 13, 2026 10:00 am

Meta Launches AI Chips to Reduce Reliance on Purchased Products

Meta is taking steps to increasingly rely on in-house AI chips as it moves to reduce its dependence on chips made by other companies. The firm revealed that it started this project back in 2023 and plans to release four new generations of its chips in the coming two years. Its MTIA, or Meta Training & Inference Accelerator, chips are being made with emphasis on GenAI tasks, recommendations, and ranking in the products of the company. The tech company revealed that its MTIA chips will form the core of the hardware they use and will then supplement these chips with…

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ThursdayMar 12, 2026 10:00 am

Spike in Oil Prices Raises Concerns in the AI Industry

The pace at which the AI boom was expected to pan out this year has come under scrutiny as energy markets are rattled by the war in the Middle East. Semiconductor stocks have experienced high levels of volatility since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, and there are concerns that if the war drags on for much longer, the AI industry could suffer significant setbacks. Already, major players in the semiconductor industry like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics have seen the prices of their stocks shed between 9% and 22% during the first week of the…

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TuesdayMar 10, 2026 10:00 am

Why European Countries are Increasingly Scrutinizing Social Media Platforms

Many countries in Europe, including France, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Britain, Germany, and many more, are either considering investigating social media platforms over harmful content or considering the imposition of bans on social media access by minors. Why, you may be wondering, is this happening at this point in time? One strong reason is the example that Australia set by passing and implementing a law last year restricting children below 16 from accessing social media platforms. The rationale for imposing that ban was to safeguard children from risks like cyberbullying, exposure to sexualized or inappropriate content, among other reasons. The factors…

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FridayMar 06, 2026 9:00 am

3 Lessons That Developers of Autonomous Vehicles Need to Implement

Many companies are racing to put self-driving cars on roads in major markets around the world, such as U.S. cities, China and Europe. These companies need to pick some valuable lessons from military drones that have come a long way from the early days when drones were in the trial and error phase. We discuss some of those key lessons that firms operating robotaxis need to learn and implement. One challenge that combat drones faced was low latency. Communication between the person monitoring the drone or robotaxi and the autonomous drone/vehicle needs to be instant. If there is a lag…

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ThursdayMar 05, 2026 9:00 am

Radar Sensors on Roadsides Could Boost Autonomous Vehicle Performance

As many companies work to put autonomous vehicles (self-driving cars) on roads, scientists are working to find ways to increase the safety of these vehicles not just for the passengers they carry but also for those in the environment, such as cyclists and pedestrians. A team of researchers has come up with a concept involving installing radar sensors on roadsides to augment the onboard sensors in autonomous vehicles. Dubbed EyeDAR, these low-power radar sensors are small (approximately orange-sized) and are designed to provide extra input to onboard sensors so that the technology inside self-driving cars can function a lot better…

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TuesdayMar 03, 2026 9:00 am

New Report Shows How Ecommerce is Leveraging Agentic AI

A new report published by Netcore shows that ecommerce brands that focused on execution tended to pull ahead of those that simply spent more on incorporating AI tools without determining how exactly those tools would deliver results. In this case, strategic execution trumped blind integration. The report shows that brands that spent more on AI tools that weren’t focused on specific goals tended to see minimal, if any, increase in their conversion rates. In contrast, those that coalesced their AI tools around clear goals and unified data reaped the rewards of their spend on AI tools. The document provides examples…

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FridayFeb 27, 2026 9:00 am

Experts Say it is Getting Harder to Measure AI Advancement

Measuring the rate at which AI is developing is becoming difficult because of the rapid pace at which advancements in the industry are happening, experts say. These observations came to light as a closely watched graph by a nonprofit that is focused on tracking AI progress was updated yet again. The research institute, known as METR, analyzes the software capabilities of the different artificial intelligence models that currently exist. Based on the test results, the experts place dots on a graph to reflect how quickly these models are becoming better at doing what developers designed them to do. Recent findings…

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