Elon Musk says ASML and other critical semiconductor equipment suppliers have expedited shipments for the ambitious Terafab semiconductor manufacturing facility, supporting his aggressive timeline for the joint megaproject between Tesla and SpaceX. He made the announcement during a live broadcast of SpaceX's Q3 2026 earnings call on X yesterday, October 20. Musk also said the company is targeting volume chip production at the project's primary facility in Gibbons Creek, Texas, by the third or fourth quarter of 2028, emphasizing that the timeline is highly aspirational and carries "big error bars."

"These are very aggressive dates, and we're very appreciative of ASML and all of our other suppliers in accelerating equipment deliveries in order to achieve this outcome," said Musk, CEO of both companies behind Terafab. SpaceX plans to manufacture its first experimental test chip at its research fabrication facility in Austin, Texas, around Q2 2027.

Aside from Terafab, Musk also outlined near-term ambitions for his AI companies during the broadcast, saying he expects them to have 2.5 to 3 gigawatts (GW) of computing capacity active by the end of 2026. He also stated he is highly confident about bringing an incremental 10 GW online in 2027, saying he "would be surprised" if they do not hit a total of 13 GW of AI compute by the end of 2027.

Meanwhile, the next-largest project by planned capacity, the now-restructured 10 GW Project Stargate, was expected to reach full capacity in the 2030s. Meta's 5 GW Hyperion also has a similar timeline. To achieve the 13 GW milestone, Musk revealed that SpaceX and xAI are aggressively procuring upcoming next-generation NVIDIA architecture. He announced plans to get a massive 440,000-GPU Nvidia "Vera Rubin" training cluster online by the end of Q2 2027.

Shifting back to Terafab, Musk also boasted that once fully scaled and operational, the sheer commercial value of Terafab's advanced chip output will place it within the top 20 global country GDPs from a single physical building. For context, the 20th country on the list is Switzerland, with a GDP of around $1.14 trillion. The facility is a planned multi-billion-dollar, vertically integrated chip factory in Texas, with an ambitious goal of manufacturing 1 terawatt (TW) of AI computing power per year. Terafab will fabricate logic, memory, and advanced packaging internal architectures in one place. The project's massive planned output has mandated various collaborations across the semiconductor supply chain. Terafab will utilize traditional extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems utilizing Intel's 14A manufacturing node technology.

Intel officially joined the Terafab venture in April 2026 to help co-develop and refactor silicon fabrication technology, providing access to its state-of-the-art 14A manufacturing process. ASML, the world's sole commercial supplier of the $400 million EUV lithography systems required for high-volume, leading-edge chip production, is perhaps the project's most critical partner. Terafab's first EUV tool was reportedly slated for delivery in mid-2027, according to unofficial sources. It remains unclear if this is the expedited timeline Musk referred to in the broadcast.

Other major suppliers include American equipment manufacturers Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA Corporation, as well as Japan's Tokyo Electron. These companies will provide front-end processing, metrology, and process control machinery. Tesla and SpaceX are also in talks with about 10 South Korean equipment makers, including Hanmi Semiconductor, known for advanced packaging equipment, and HPSP, a high-pressure hydrogen annealing equipment manufacturer, as well as firms providing specialized piping components and process valves.

Musk's announcement says that several of these suppliers are expediting supply to Terafab, even as capacity remains tight across the semiconductor supply chain. The facility, which aims to mitigate future shortfalls of cutting-edge AI processors from external foundries like TSMC, will supply the chips for Musk's xAI clusters, self-driving vehicles, Optimus humanoid robots, and SpaceX's orbital AI data center, as well as the broader AI industry.

However, many experts have questioned the validity of Musk's 1 TW Terafab ambition. For context, research firm Gartner estimates the total global AI-optimized data center capacity is roughly 44 GW as of late 2026, 4.4% of Terafab's planned output. Although global AI computing capacity has grown by roughly 3.3x to 3.4x per year since 2022, according to EpochAI.

While Windows overclockers have spent years lazily sliding UI controls to adjust frequency curves and tweak voltages inside Ryzen Master, Linux users have largely had to treat their CPU tuning like an archaeological dig into the opaque veil of UEFI/BIOS firmware. Well, rejoice, Linux users, as AMD has officially published a fresh set of patches for the Linux kernel introducing AOD (AMD Overclocking Driver) support for Ryzen processors, Phoronix reports.

Instead of forcing developers to reverse-engineer closed-source firmware hooks or rely on messy, machine-specific ACPI workarounds, this new kernel driver is a direct pipeline to AMD's platform adjustments. By exposing core tuning capabilities straight through the standard sysfs interface, AMD is laying down an official, upstreamed foundation for software-level CPU management.

Right out of the gate, the driver handles platform-level SMT toggling, memory clock visibility, and power tunables. That's right: you can now toggle Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) dynamically through this driver interface. That works through the CPU hotplugging mechanism and acts as a clean alternative to passing the old 'nosmt' boot parameter to the kernel. The new driver also allows real-time monitoring of memory clocks, and initial power controls are being wired up, too.

Now, if you're expecting a polished, one-click official AMD application equivalent to Ryzen Master for Linux, just pump the brakes. AMD is following its open-source amdgpu graphics driver playbook here, building the kernel plumbing and then leaving the user-space presentation layer entirely up to the community. That means you're going to have to wait for utilities like CoreCtrl to build out interfaces for this new driver, but it shouldn't be long now before that work gets underway in earnest.

This approach is arguably a better fit for the Linux philosophy anyway. Because the controls are being exposed via clean kernel sysfs nodes, it won't be long before independent developers integrate these knobs into powerhouse open-source monitoring and tuning suites, or even write dedicated desktop environment extensions specifically for the purpose of tweaking Ryzen processors.

The new patches are currently winding their way through review on the mailing lists, meaning mainstream kernel integration is on the horizon. For a DIY enthusiast who loves squeezing every last MHz out of silicon while maintaining a fully open-source software stack, this is easily the most exciting hardware-enablement milestone I've seen in a long time.

President Donald Trump has issued a call for data center builders and AI hyperscalers to pay communities a dividend in order to overcome energy-related price hikes, or even to reduce prices, in order to make data centers more palatable to local communities. In a post on Truth Social post, he warned that data centers would be mandated not only to make their own electricity, as he has previously stated, but also to give or sell excess energy back to the local community.

Local communities all over the United States have protested against AI data centers, often owing to their outsized impact on local communities. Rising electricity costs, noise pollution, water shortages, air pollution, deforestation, and more are the things that small communities have to deal with because of these companies.

To ease the pain of local communities, Trump is demanding that these large companies provide the communities they affect with something that will hopefully make their presence more acceptable. The Trump Administration is keen to stay ahead of China in the AI arms race and is looking for solutions to win back some favor by making the data centers pay something back to the affected communities; how that will practically transpire is yet to be seen. Considering the electricity-focused post, the dividend might be in the form of partially paying rising electricity costs to alleviate a pain point that directly affects many homes within the vicinity of data centers. The Trump Administration had ordered these companies to make their own electricity, as we’ve covered previously. Excess electricity from their generation could be used to further lower the electricity cost for the locals, including a recently passed act that orders data centers to shoulder the cost for grid upgrades to avoid taking it from the taxes of local communities.

“Data Centers that were highly unpopular in a certain area have become extremely popular when a financial deal is struck.” Trump further says in his post, aiming to have more data centers built, “MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!!," the President said in closing.

Whether the dividends will be enough to win over communities is yet to be known, as the economic aspect is only one facet of the problem. There are still plenty of problems to face; enormous water consumption, ecological damage, and pollution are still major challenges that make AI data centers a hard sell anywhere they’re located.

Qualcomm has told employees it will cut jobs worldwide after its annual performance reviews, and it expects to begin informing affected employees in November. According to a Reuters report, CEO Cristiano Amon framed the move as a “performance-focused reduction” intended to build a “stronger performance culture,” stating that the company will consider organizational needs, business priorities, and employees’ skills and expertise when determining affected positions.

“The reduction will address employees who have consistently fallen short of expectations,” said Amon. The memo did not specify which departments would be affected or how many jobs would be cut. The company had roughly 52,000 employees at the end of its 2025 fiscal year, typically in late September.

Qualcomm, one of the world’s largest smartphone chip manufacturers with customers including Apple, Xiaomi, and Samsung, has been hit by an industry-wide decline in consumer electronics sales as rising memory costs reduce demand. Its shares have risen just 1.5% in 2026, compared to gains of almost 60% for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.

As a result, Qualcomm is strategically pivoting to AI infrastructure and edge computing, following a broadening trend across the semiconductor industry. The company unveiled its AI200 and AI250 AI inference accelerators in October 2025. After its latest earnings report projected lower quarterly profits than initially estimated, the company said that growth in its data center business would offset any lost revenue by fiscal year 2027.

Qualcomm’s layoff decision comes as it tries to position itself for future growth. While mobile chips remain its core business, its best future opportunities might lie in data center silicon, automotive platforms, personal computing, and edge computing, and all those fields require specialized engineering talent. A performance-based reduction could let the company retain its most valuable employees in those fields while cutting duplicated roles, lower-performing teams, and positions that no longer fit its strategy.

"As we have expanded the business, so have the competencies ⁠and skills ​we require," Amon wrote. "We must have the right ​people in the right roles so they can perform at their best and the company can continue ​to succeed." The move comes on the back of Q3 2026 financial results that included a 4% year-on-year decline in revenue and 25% lower net income. The core handset business recorded a 20% decline in revenue on the year, too. The company reportedly recorded $97 million in severance-related restructuring charges in the first nine months of its fiscal year.

Qualcomm’s move is part of a larger industry transition, largely driven by AI. After several years of aggressive hiring, many tech companies are now trimming their workforce to fund AI ambitions. Meta announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs to fund AI infrastructure. Even as companies are cutting jobs that don’t fit their AI roadmap, they're fiercely competing for process engineers, chip designers, and AI software developers. McKinsey and the SEMI Foundation estimate that the United States could face a shortage of up to 157,000 semiconductor workers by 2030, while 73% of chip companies report difficulty filling engineering roles.

SSD controller designer FADU’s new File-Semantic SSD (FS-SSD) was announced at the 2026 OCP Global Summit. The new device promises to move the file system into the SSD itself. As detailed in a white paper, this enables GPUs, DPUs, and NICs to open and read files with “no host filesystem, no block layer, and no storage-server CPU in the path.” FADU told Tom’s Hardware Premium it expects partner samples by Q3 2027.

FADU is a Seoul, South Korea-based fabless SSD controller designer. Its FS-SSD technology is designed to handle and improve the control path, as the data path side moved to accelerators years ago. FADU’s measurements show that the file system, plus block layers, can consume about 30% of CPU cycles in a GPUDirect Storage (GDS) random-read workload. It notes that bypass options give up the files, and the company claims its solution promises the best of both worlds.

In FADU’s own preliminary Network File System (NFS) over NVMe test, on a drive built on its FC6161 Gen6 controller in a PCIe 5.0 host, remote file throughput held steady as the server downshifted from what FADU labels 16 cores to just one, maintaining about 460,000 ops/s.

The NFSv3 operations are carried inside standard NVMe commands, and the drive handles path lookup, access control, and file-to-flash mapping. FS-SSD’s performance is remarkable when compared to Linux NFS-over-RDMA, which achieved a third of the ops/s with 16 cores and only 40K ops/s with one core. The technology remains “under active development,” and FADU told Tom’s Hardware Premium it expects Gen6-host results by Q1 2027, with partner samples in Q3 2027.

FADU chooses to use NFSv3 because it’s “small (21 operations), OS- and filesystem-agnostic, and stateless” with low firmware overhead. FS-SSD supports PCIe today, with NVMe-oF over RDMA and TCP working without any new transport needed. Reusing an existing protocol is a smart move, in our view. Under the hood, the file system and flash translation layer are merged with a file layer derived from F2FS. Node and data blocks are aligned with the natural flash pages, sections at corresponding erase units, so that the F2FS node table becomes a “File Map” pointing the node IDs at physical flash addresses.

One big advantage is that the DRAM mapping metadata overhead is considerably smaller: it uses the same amount of DRAM as a standard SSD, ~0.1% of NAND capacity (about 1 GB per TB), which a standard SSD fills almost entirely with its mapping table. Here, most of that DRAM, ~95%, can act as a hot-path node cache.

One garbage collector also replaces two, avoiding what FADU calls the “double GC” of host F2FS, where file-system cleanup and the drive’s own garbage collection amplify each other. Write amplification is also 63% lower versus a host F2FS solution on a mixed sequential and random workload with FADU’s research prototype, the company said. FADU told Tom's Hardware Premium that the prototype runs synthetic fio workloads on NVMeVirt, an open-source software SSD emulator from Seoul National University, so it is not a hardware result.

Most importantly for this method, it ensures host-free access. The GPU builds NFS-over-NVMe commands in queues in its own memory, which could include HBM. Alternatively, a remote SmartNIC or DPU with NVMe-oF target offload can drop commands in the drive’s submission queue. The data goes from SSD to NIC via PCIe peer-to-peer DMA, coming out as RDMA writes. FADU’s explicitly named use cases for this include GPU file reads and checkpoints, DPU-served HTTP content delivery, and a JBoF (just a bunch of flash) file server.

FADU’s numbers for its internal test come from a client and server Intel Core i5-13600K, a CPU with 20 threads that clocks up to 5.1 GHz with 128GB of DDR5, and a Mellanox ConnectX-6 100 Gbps NIC. Synthetic testing is compared using fio with the baseline F2FS and Ext4 on block firmware versus the FS-SSD via a kernel client and an SPDK user-space client. The sequential test is 1 thread, queue depth (QD) 128, with 128KB blocks, while random is at 4 threads, the same QD128, but with 4KB blocks.

These block sizes are typical for client workloads in our experience, so they are a fair measure, with detailed preliminary results in the table below. Against SPDK on the raw drive, figures FADU provided to us, FS-SSD’s SPDK client keeps about 93% on 4K random read and 53% on 4K random write, via fio, with around a 7% and 47% cost for the in-drive file layer. Though the raw drive’s 13,240 MB/s random write is above the ~12 GB/s FADU gives as the NAND’s program bandwidth, those runs likely weren’t at steady state. The Filebench result is particularly interesting, as the SPDK random gains apply to a plain block device too.

This should be the workload most favorable for the technology, as the Filebench file server is metadata-heavy with relatively high host overhead: FADU says it uses 10,000 files in a multi-level tree, mean directory width 20, and a mean file size of 128KB with 50 client threads.

One important thing to recall is that although this test is on a Gen6 drive, the test results are on a PCIe 5.0 host. Therefore, every sequential read config tops out at around 14.1 GB/s, which is roughly the link limit. The testbed also uses a consumer-class desktop CPU, while the one-core NFS server is a showcase example. The kernel client ends up 11.5% behind Ext4 on random read and 5.3% behind on random write, again by our math.

One example of a tough question more generally is: how do concurrent GPU, DPU, and host writers coordinate? How does a kernel mount’s page cache stay coherent with GPU access? NFSv3 storage devices, by the pNFS Flexible File Layout spec (RFC 8435), are “always treated as loosely coupled,” which means “Mandatory byte-range locking cannot be supported.”

Credentials riding in the NVMe command may also face security issues, as loosely coupled devices get only “a level of security equivalent to AUTH_SYS,” NFS’s basic scheme, in which the server trusts whatever user and group IDs the client sends. FADU’s published material also does not describe features such as snapshots, encryption handling, quotas, ACLs, crash handling, and so forth, related to this. Statelessness is what makes it work, but it doesn’t solve all problems, so the trust factor moves elsewhere.

In reply to our questioning, FADU said that there is no cross-host locking, as NFS’s lock manager isn’t implemented. The drive applies each write whole, in order. If two writes hit the same spot, the second one wins; this is “last-writer-wins.” Coordination depends on the clients: kernel-mounted ones get the usual advisory locks among themselves, GPU and SPDK clients coordinate in the application, and at scale a pNFS metadata server handles the coordination. Caching is also handled like ordinary NFS, with kernel clients, or is not done at all, for GPU and SPDK clients. This is stock NFSv3 behavior.

The drive has to check user/group IDs against the file permissions itself. Because those IDs ride inside the command, a client could fake them, but FADU says it closes that issue with capability-based authentication. Each command carries a capability issued by an outside authentication server, plus a code computed with a key shared only between that server and the drive. This is not detailed in its published material. FADU adds that support for the Kerberos authentication protocol is planned. For networked drives, the standard NVMe-oF protections are used, with only pre-approved hosts admitted. A drive trusts a single host’s kernel like any NVMe drive.

However, as FADU described to us, ACLs and other features are missing in the current release, aside from encryption, which in this case is handled by the FC6161’s standard TCG Opal self-encrypting drive support. Power loss is also typically handled with capacitors flushing metadata, the write buffer, and a log of in-flight operations. On restart, the drive replays the unfinished operations, and every write is durable if the drive acknowledges it.

FADU’s longer sights are on producing a JBoF storage solution with no server in front: FS-SSDs, a PCIe switch, and a DPU or NIC for handling NVMe-oF in hardware. FADU’s model puts this at about 42% lower power, about 57% lower cost per 16-drive server, and higher rack density with significantly lower five-year total cost of ownership. The drives would slot in behind existing pNFS metadata servers and could scale. FADU’s controllers already ship with drives such as the SN861, which Western Digital launched and SanDisk now sells, but this would expand the options and solutions it can provide.

Next year should bring real numbers and samples, with the JBoF reference design also expected. There may be an NVM Express or OCP Storage proposal down the line for a file-semantic command set to further cement and mature the approach. FADU has a good idea, is building it on an existing framework, and has a testbed with results and a hardware path forward on its Gen6 controller, with a trust model in mind. A Gen6-host run is now needed to support the company’s claims.

Intel and AMD are integrating their CPU optimizations for PyTorch into a unified library, offering tuning for both AMD and Intel chips through the oneDNN library. AMD has maintained a downstream version of oneDNN called ZenDNN, which is now moving into the open-source oneDNN, published by the UXL Foundation and driven by Intel. AMD also announced it's joining the UXL Foundation as a "steering member," which "influences the future of the UXL Foundation" in exchange for a contribution of $20,000 per year.

AMD says the move to unify these efforts under oneDNN was recommended by the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group (EAG), which is a joint initiative that primarily exists between Intel and AMD and was established in 2024. The two companies have collaborated through the EAG previously, such as with the ACE extensions for x86 that we learned about earlier this year.

The oneDNN backend is used for CPU inference, and it's built to accelerate that workload for the latest Intel (and now AMD) chips in frameworks like PyTorch. When oneDNN was added to PyTorch as a backend in late 2023, it showed a 1.24x improvement with the Float32 data type, and 2.21x for the BFloat16 data type.

From the oneDNN GitHub, the library "detects hardware features at runtime" to generate optimized kernels for the platform, as well as provides low-precision data types. It also features optimized instructions for common AI and machine learning operations, such as matrix multiplication and convolution.

For developers, the move simplifies working with PyTorch across different systems, ensuring a single backend provides the proper optimizations for whatever hardware you're running. Although the news here is focused on the x86 guard, oneDNN is a cross-platform library that works on Arm and RISC-V architectures as well.

Intel originally developed oneDNN, built on top of previously deep learning libraries, before it was folded into the UXL Foundation. Intel was among the founding members of the UXL Foundation, alongside Arm, Qualcomm, Google Cloud, and others.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has described several undersea fiber cables that run through the Strait of Hormuz as "legitimate new targets." The area has become a hotbed of conflict since the start of military action by the United States, Israel and others in February. General Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, referred to the cables in comments at an event this week, The Telegraph reports.

"Seven large cables pass beneath the Strait of Hormuz, and all internet and commercial data pass through them," according to Mohebbi. He went on to describe the cables as "legitimate new targets" for future assaults. Meanwhile, another IRGC General, Yadollah Javani, who serves as the IRGC's political deputy, has since suggested that if Iranian infrastructure is attacked, Iran will respond by attacking the cables, according to comments reported by Iran International.

The conflict between the United States and Iran has cooled, but it isn't quite over yet. Mohebbi suggested that a "third phase" in the war would reveal a "new geography" that would include "new targets and new weapons." One particular cable referenced by the IRGC appears to match the Asia-Africa-Europe-1 cable, a cable stretching 15,050 miles from Asia to Europe, traveling through Oman, the UAE and Qatar. Both the UAE and Qatar share direct maritime borders with Iran.

Experts believe the threat is credible. Professor Alesso Patalano, a war and strategy professor at King's College London, told The Telegraph that "not only is it possible, but it's been a rather clear possibility for a long time," adding that divers could "go down to the seabed... and cut them or destroy them." Such attacks aren't "unheard of," going on to reference the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline attack near Denmark in 2022, supposedly by Ukrainian agents, as an example.

Meanwhile, further comments, made to The Telegraph, suggest that Iran had considered cutting the cables several times since the war began. However, up until now, Tehran had avoided doing so, as it would mean "declaring war on the whole world and building new enemies," according to another unnamed Iranian spokesman, although stating that it would continue to be "an option if Trump escalates."

Iran isn't the only country that has taken a special interest in undersea infrastructure. A Russian ship, for instance, was chased from British waters by a Royal Navy attack helicopter earlier this year as it loitered for 14 hours less than a mile from five undersea cables that connect the UK with Spain, Portugal, Canada, and the U.S.

The two biggest NAND flash memory manufacturers on the planet, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, are reportedly working to upgrade their Chinese factories to produce more advanced chips for use in AI data centers, Reuters reports. The move comes as the two companies continue to fight off competition from the fast-growing Chinese memory makers like CXMT. Fierce competition in the lucrative AI RAM market has already seen manufacturers slash consumer-focused production to allow them to increase production capacity for the more advanced — and money-spinning — components.

Citing four people familiar with the companies' plans, the report claims that Samsung Electronics aims to switch its Xian plant to the production of 286-layer flash chips by the end of the year. SK Hynix has its sights set a little lower, targeting chips with 240 or more layers at its Dalian facility. That factory was taken over back in 2021, but a timescale for the new upgrades isn't clear.

However, while Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are well placed to deal with the growing threat from Chinese chipmakers, both are faced with additional complications in the form of U.S. regulations. Export controls on chipmaking equipment were applied in 2022, with the aim of slowing China's technological progress. Both companies, based in South Korea, must now get licenses in order to install U.S.-built hardware in Chinese factories. The report points to this as a reason for the recent growth of Chinese firms like Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). The company told investors at a recent IPO preparation meeting that it aims to become the world's largest NAND flash producer by the end of 2027.

While both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix say that they are working in consultation with the U.S. authorities, there's little doubt that this extra step has hampered the companies' ability to upgrade their factories to better meet the new AI memory demand.

It's impossible to overstate just how key Samsung and SK Hynix are to NAND supply. Samsung's Xian factory produces around 40% of the company's global output. It currently produces chips that have around 200 layers, but Samsung's plans aim to boost that to 286 layers for V9 NAND chips. For its part, SK Hynix's Dalian plant currently produces chips with 192 layers, with the company's aim for 240-layer chips reportedly confirmed by three people familiar with the plans.

Meanwhile, CXMT, China's premier chipmaker, is looking to move beyond DRAM production. A report from September 2026 noted that it was eyeing production of 3D NAND memory for use in solid-state storage (SSD) products. The country's largest DRAM producer, CXMT, posted $22.41 billion in revenue and $11.57 billion in net profit in the first half of 2026 after years of losing money. But despite this purple patch, the company is still much smaller than the likes of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.

"Best gaming headset for audiophiles" is one of the categories on our list of best gaming headsets, and it's easy to look at that and wonder if you shouldn't be looking at just audiophile headsets to begin with. Headsets are mainly about audio, after all, and it does seem to logically follow that audiophile headsets would have the best audio (I mean, it's in the name).

Well, not so fast.

Headsets are mainly about audio, but that doesn't mean that the "objectively" best-sounding headset by audiophile standards translates to the best-sounding headset by gaming standards. Nor does it mean that you should choose your gaming headset based on audio quality at the expense of everything else.

Audiophile headsets, including headphones, are primarily designed around one thing: audio fidelity. In other words, they're designed and tuned to reproduce audio exactly as it was recorded, which is exactly as the artist heard it when they were recording it, and is therefore exactly as the artist intended for it to be heard. This doesn't necessarily mean it's going to sound amazing to everyone. In fact, to many people it will probably sound somewhat underwhelming, but it's really the only objective way we have of measuring what makes audio "good," since how something sounds depends largely on individual listeners' preferences.

Gaming headsets, on the other hand, are designed around... well, everything else. This doesn't mean they ignore audio fidelity completely, but it tends to not be the priority. (Many premium flagship gaming headsets have been focusing more on audio fidelity in recent years, but it's still generally not the priority.) Gaming headsets tend to focus on other features, such as comfort, convenience, and communication. And when they do focus on audio, their priority is about making games sound good — which is generally not the same as making them sound accurate to their original recording.

Don't get me wrong, some of the "audiophile" elements do help games sound better; for example, detailed, layered sound and a wide soundstage make virtual environments sound more realistic. But ultimate realism isn't always what gamers are looking for. If you're playing a competitive first-person shooter, you're probably looking for audio cues to give you a tactical advantage: you want sound that's directionally accurate and that singles out specific details, such as footsteps and gunshots. You're not here to appreciate the individual details you can pick out from different layers of audio if those details prevent you from hearing what's important. If you're playing a game that's designed to make you feel something with the sound, an epic fantasy or a horror RPG, for example, then the goal isn't really accurate sound reproduction; it's for the game to sound epic (or horrifying, I guess).

There isn't a universally perfect answer, of course, because it depends on how you're going to use the headset. It's easy to get swept up in the audiophile hype, but you shouldn't ditch your mainstream gaming just yet. Here's what you should consider before buying into either side.

Comfort

There are plenty of audiophile headsets and gaming headsets that are comfortable — and plenty that are... not so much. While both categories tend to put comfort at least somewhat high on the priority list, comfort means different things for different listeners. Audiophile headsets tend to be larger and more open — larger drivers can produce more sound with less movement, and less movement means less distortion; an open-back design lets sound waves move through the headset instead of bouncing off the enclosure for a wider soundstage and better spatial accuracy. Open-back headsets offer more listening comfort: you won't feel like the sound is closing in and overwhelming you like you will with closed-back headsets, and you'll be able to listen for longer.

Gaming headsets, on the other hand, are largely closed-back (though there are several open-back gaming headsets on the market now, including the Corsair Virtuoso Pro and the Turtle Beach Atlas Air), with smaller drivers, so there's not as much consideration toward listening comfort. They do, however, tend to focus more on physical comfort. They are lightweight and flexible, with gamer-oriented features such as Turtle Beach's "ProSpecs" earpads, which have softer foam near the front to prevent discomfort for gamers who wear glasses. Or the hinge-free design of Logitech's G735 headset, to prevent snagging on longer hair and piercings. Audiophile headsets are designed to be physically comfortable, but gaming headsets are specifically designed around the gaming audience.

Convenience

Convenience is one area in which gaming headsets will basically always win, hands-down. Not only are audiophile headsets not designed with convenience in mind, they're usually the opposite: wired, with very little non-audio-focused tech, and many require a separate audio interface to even work with a PC or gaming console.

Gaming headsets, on the other hand, are packed with technology to make your life easier. Headsets like the Turtle Beach Stealth Pro II and the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro let you connect to multiple devices and switch between them seamlessly, listen to two audio sources simultaneously, and quickly cycle through game-ready EQ presets. Gaming headsets try to put as many controls as possible at your fingertips, from on-ear dials and buttons to detailed app-based EQ tuning to separate desktop base stations (such as the one included with the HyperX Cloud Alpha 2 Wireless).

Even wired gaming headsets often include multiple ways to connect to various devices. For instance, the HyperX Cloud Alpha Air is wired, but it comes with a standard 3.5mm analog cable for plugging into a standard audio jack, a USB-C extension (with USB-A converter) for plugging into a USB-C/USB-A port, and a PC headset extension for plugging into separate audio/mic jacks.

The wireless gaming headsets from the audiophile sector that have these features still manage to implement them in a way that is... well, inconvenient. Audeze's Maxwell and Maxwell 2 allow for dual-wireless connectivity but do not give you a way to manually switch between the two. Instead, Bluetooth always takes precedence over 2.4GHz wireless — full stop. It's infuriating, and it's one of my only real grievances with those headsets.

Communication

A standalone USB gaming mic will almost always make you sound better than a built-in headset mic. But that doesn't mean that you should ignore headset mics or how gaming headsets implement other features that help you communicate with others, whether they're team members or stream viewers, while gaming. (Besides, some headsets, such as the Razer BlackShark V2 Pro (2023), have microphones that actually can rival the best USB gaming mics.)

If you go with an audiophile headset — or headphones — you'll likely need to invest in a separate gaming mic regardless. There's more to communication than just the mic, though. Many gaming headsets, such as SteelSeries' Arctis Nova series, have built-in ChatMix, which lets you channel your game audio and your chat audio through different channels and mix them together on your headset. This lets you dial up (or dial down) chat if you need to hear what's being said over whatever epic music or sound effects are playing in the game. Gaming headsets are also backed by peripheral software that, while often frustrating, is, ultimately, designed around the needs of gamers. Software-based noise reduction/cancellation, microphone EQs, and sidetone are all particularly useful communication tools that you won't find on most audiophile headsets.

Audiophile or gaming headset?

At the end of the day, audiophile headsets tend to focus on audio above everything, which is exactly what audiophiles want. But it's not really what most gamers want. A great gaming headset does have to sound good, but that's not all it has to do.

There are, of course, gaming headsets from audiophile companies, such as the Audeze Maxwell and Maxwell 2, as well as headsets from gaming companies that implement audiophile features, such as the open-back Corsair Virtuoso Pro. And while a headset like the Audeze Maxwell 2 does a decent job of bridging the gap between audiophile and gaming, it makes some sacrifices; it's a very heavy headset (thanks in part to its large, 90mm planar magnetic drivers), though it is relatively comfortable for its weight. It sounds great, but it doesn't do the best job of implementing the gamer side of things — while it has a wide soundstage and decent spatial immersion, that's not the same as pinpoint spatial accuracy when you're listening for footsteps and gunshots.

And while the much pricier Audeze LCD-GX sounds incredible, it's basically the perfect example of how an audiophile headset focuses on sound at the expense of all else, as its gaming features are... mostly non-existent. The only thing that really makes the LCD-GX gamer-friendly is the fact that you can plug it directly into a PC because it comes with a 3.5mm cable and a PC (dual 3.5mm headphone/mic) converter.

So, should you get an audiophile headset in lieu of a gaming headset? Probably not. If you need a gaming headset for its gaming features: multi-device connectivity, super accurate positional audio for tactical advantage in shooting games, the ability to mix chat and game audio on the spot, convenient microphone, connection, and volume controls at your fingertips, or physical comfort for a marathon gaming session, definitely not. Yes, you will give up some audio fidelity and quality by picking a gaming headset over an audiophile one, but you aren't going to miss that when you're arguing over voice chat while trying to determine how far away the enemy is.

Micron faces a one-day labor stoppage at its Taoyuan operations in Taiwan on October 22, Reuters reports. Micron's employees are striking for concrete terms for this year's bonus and a clearer mechanism for sharing the company's future profits. The strike's teeth come from the resultant financial impact on Micron's operations, as semiconductor fabs are supposed to operate around the clock. The scheduled protest comes amid strong demand for memory chips and will have a minor impact on Micron's memory output.

The Taoyuan union wants Micron to present a specific proposal for this year's additional employee bonus and establish a transparent formula for distributing a portion of future profits. Previous negotiations between the company and the union ended unsuccessfully in September, which prompted employees to approve industrial action in early October. Nonetheless, the union stresses that the October 22 strike is intended to pressure Micron into reaching an agreement rather than terminate negotiations. The union is prepared to conclude a deal if the company presents terms acceptable to employees across its Taiwanese operations.

The situation could become more serious if employees at Micron's Taichung operations, its largest manufacturing site in Taiwan, decide to join the action. A separate labor organization that represents workers at that facility is scheduled to meet with Micron for mediation on October 22, the same day as the Taoyuan protest. However, the Taichung union has not yet authorized a strike.

Micron's fabs in Taiwan produce commodity DDR5 and LPDDR as well as expensive high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI accelerators. Amid record demand for memory of all types, even a one-day suspension of operations would have a material impact on Micron's output and earnings.

Modern semiconductor fabs are supposed to work 24/7/365, as many processes cannot be halted. However, if management has sufficient time and personnel to prepare, a one-day warning strike does not necessarily mean a complete shutdown of Micron's Taoyuan manufacturing operations, not to mention permanent damage to wafers or equipment. The actual consequences of the strike will depend on employee participation, which manufacturing operations are affected, and Micron's contingency plans. While it is likely that the output will drop, the decline will likely be negligible.

Micron employs approximately 15,000 people in Taiwan. The workers point to compensation arrangements at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix as examples of how semiconductor manufacturers can distribute profits among employees as AI-driven demand generates unprecedented cash flows for memory firms.

On the lookout for a new gaming laptop? Best Buy is offering $850 off the list price of the Lenovo Legion 5i 16-inch Gaming Laptop, bringing the price to $1799.99. The full list price of this laptop mentioned on the Best Buy store page is $2649.99, which is a hefty sting to anyone's bank account. This Legion 5i packs a high-res 16-inch display and a powerful laptop graphics card, and comes in a very well-constructed Lenovo Legion chassis.

● Check out this deal at Best Buy

The Lenovo Legion 5i in this deal features a 16-inch IPS screen with a sharp 3K display (2560 x 1600-pixel) resolution, a blistering 240Hz refresh rate, and 500 nits of brightness. This Legion 5i model sports an Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX processor with an Nvidia mobile RTX 5070 graphics card with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM, 16GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD for storage, which completes the main hardware specifications of this powerful gaming laptop.

The Legion 5i also offers video connectivity via USB-C DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.1. Other ports onboard the Legion 5i include Thunderbolt 4 and 3x USB-A ports. Speedy Wi-Fi 7 connects you wirelessly for gaming, with helpful RGB backlighting on the keyboard for gaming in darker environments.

The battery life for the Legion 5i is rated for around 4.7 hours of use, but, as is the issue with all gaming laptops that use a powerful graphics solution for gaming, the battery can drain very quickly. So, for the full gaming potential of this laptop, you will need to be connected to mains power.

Right now, the best way to pick up a gaming PC is to buy a pre-built, with hardware prices shooting through the roof. Luckily, the big tech retailers continue to throw out deals for gamers to take advantage of. For instance, you can pick up this ABS Cyclone Aqua machine with an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU, giving you 1440-capable performance for $1,499.99.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

If you took these specs and tried to build a matching PC yourself, you'd struggle to beat this price. Front and center here is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB of VRAM: a formidable option for a budget-friendly gaming PC. You're also getting a 20-core Intel Core i7-14700F CPU, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

With the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti at your disposal, you're getting one of Nvidia’s latest-generation mid-tier graphics cards. It has 4,608 CUDA cores and a boost clock speed of 2,527MHz. Unlike the more power-hungry top-end RTX 50-series cards, you only need one eight-pin PCIe connector to deliver power here, so you can banish those worries about burning GPU cables.

Our RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB review makes clear how good the performance is with this Blackwell GPU for gamers, especially at 1080p and 1440p. The charts you'll see below show that, especially with ray tracing in the mix, compared to rival cards at this level. Full DLSS support is included, too, so you can add multi-frame generation as a backstop. That'll give you a nice frame rate boost in the most resource-heavy games if you're pushing up to the highest resolutions.

You can also count on 16GB of GDD7 VRAM with this GPU. That makes it a much more appealing option than 8GB variants you might have to settle for in other rigs at this price point. 16GB gives you more headroom, as far as performance goes, for the most resource-heavy games at 1440p.

For the CPU, you're getting the Intel Core i7-14700F. This continues to be a popular CPU option for gaming, despite being a little older. This Raptor Lake Refresh CPU has 20 cores, with eight performance cores, which are the ones you'll want for gaming, along with 12 efficient cores for multi-threaded work. It also has a maximum turbo clock speed of 5.4 GHz, along with a 65W TDP. At 1080p or 1440p, you won't see much of a bottleneck with the 14700F at your disposal in modern games.

No risk of settling for slower DDR4 RAM here, either. You get fast DDR5 instead, with 16GB of G.Skill Flare X5 DDR5 memory included with speeds of 6,000 MT/s. You aren't getting 32GB, which is a compromise, but you do have room to upgrade later, and DDR5 ensures some extra longevity.

Storage-wise, you're also getting a 1TB Patriot P410 SSD. It has Gen 4 speeds, with that 1TB of storage ensuring you get space for a couple of the big AAA games alongside your Windows installation. This ABS build also comes with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, along with gigabit Ethernet for a wired connection to your local network.

The $1,499.99 sale price for this ABS Cyclone Aqua gaming PC makes it an affordable option for gamers who want a 1440p-ready rig right now, especially with prices rising elsewhere. The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is the standout component, but there's no guarantee that this price will last for very long.

A fanless compute module will head to the Moon for supercomputer benchmarking, AI testing, and additional experimentation by NASA and Deloitte, as detailed in a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) release. The company’s Spaceborne Computer-4 will run what HPE calls “the first high performance computing (HPC) benchmarks on the surface of the Moon,” riding on an Astrolab FLIP rover to the lunar south pole. The launch is slated for late 2026 under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative for a Moon Base program mission, in conjunction with a Voyager Technologies Griffin-1 lander.

Named benchmarks include High Performance Conjugate Gradients (HPCG), a supercomputing metric that complements High Performance LINPACK (HPL). AI testing will involve large language model (LLM) retrieval-augmented generation, vision inference, LiDAR processing, and an AI services container for AI app deployment. The LLMs “will deliver insights, analyze visual data, and support autonomous monitoring,” while the LiDAR processing involves mapping, navigation, terrain analysis, and infrastructure development.

Scott Wiest, HPE’s vice president, fellow and global sales chief technologist, said, “The next chapter of lunar exploration will depend on the ability to turn data into insights at the point of discovery.” HPE says “no other company or organization” has conducted such benchmarks on the Moon, with a presumption that no other parties’ planned HPC missions will get there first. HPE also assembled a software suite that handles the link to Earth-side systems and the secure delivery of results.

HPE’s “lightweight, self-contained, and fanless” advanced compute module is “built for space environments,” bringing AI and HPC “to the lunar edge,” as Wiest put it, or the “far-edge,” as HPE calls it. The computer blade is about 10 inches long and about 4 inches wide, about the size of a typical graphics card, and is made from two component cards, as HPE senior director Norm Follett explained on the company’s Technology Now podcast last year.

It includes 1TB of Kioxia storage, a low-power CPU, and a small GPU. The chassis is designed to shed heat into a rover plate, and the overall design is made for the Moon rather than being an off-the-shelf solution like International Space Station (ISS) units. Currently, HPE’s description of the unit lacks hard details on performance targets, power budgets, or chip vendors, but the eventual benchmark results will yield some information.

The original Spaceborne Computer launched in August 2017 on SpaceX’s CRS-12 to the ISS. It also ran HPL with HPCG, surpassing one teraflop, according to HPE. It was rack-installed and water-cooled; the fanless Computer-4 is quite miniaturized in comparison to the 124-pound original Spaceborne Computer. Spaceborne Computer-2, also on the ISS, is made of HPE Edgeline and ProLiant systems with Kioxia SSDs.

NASA will use the opportunity to run its Federated Learning for Unbounded and Intelligent Decentralization (FLUID) AI neural network, trained on data from the Earth, the Moon, and the ISS, coordinating three distinct models. The agency will also test a tuned LLM for semantic processing for handling onboard documents. Deloitte, for its part, will test its Silent Shield, “a new system to detect cyber intrusions” with near-real-time predictive analytics. Testing ideally occurs onboard, as the link to Earth is slow with low levels of bandwidth, Follett explained.

The launch is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026, using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, SpacePolicyOnline reports. It will take several days for the lander to reach the Moon and its surface. The FLIP rover is designed to operate for one lunar day, or about 14 Earth days, before attempting to survive the night via hibernation, Follett said, making for a relatively tight benchmarking window.

Three contract workers died, and one more is in intensive care after an accident at the construction site for TSMC’s 2nm Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, reports Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP) Bureau suspects the cause was a broken bolt on a steel connection plate that sent the workers and steel components tumbling. Steel hoisting on the project has been halted, and the STSP has sent labor inspectors to investigate. The accident is not the first of its kind but rather follows at least a half dozen others since September 2024 at TSMC construction sites in Taiwan, according to local reports. Each of those earlier accidents killed one worker.

Local police said that the men were welding a steel beam on an upper floor and fell with it, while the STSP said the workers were performing steel-structure hoisting and installation when a third-floor connection-plate bolt apparently broke.

10 emergency vehicles were sent to the site with 22 personnel, and all four men involved in the incident were taken to the hospital. On-site medical staff gave first aid, but three of the workers died despite resuscitation efforts, and the fourth was moved to intensive care. The workers were employed by a contractor working on the fourth phase of the complex’s construction, and TSMC said the area was within that contractor’s scope of work.

According to the report, TSMC stopped the related construction work on its own and is working with authorities and supervising the subcontractor’s follow-up.

The Fab 22 complex, located in Kaohsiung’s Nanzi District, is part of the science park and is being built to accelerate 2nm manufacturing. TSMC entered high-volume 2nm, or N2, manufacturing in the fourth quarter of 2025, including at Fab 22. The complex has five phases planned, with a total investment TSMC puts at more than NT$1.5 trillion, or about $46 billion. The accident happened on the construction side, not in a producing fab. Kaohsiung’s deputy mayor said construction on Phase 4 began in August 2025, with operations expected in the fourth quarter of 2027.

Business Today reports that TSMC fab construction has increased, from four fabs a year in 2017–2024 to nine a year in 2025 and 2026. The deaths come as the company plans for 13 new leading-edge and advanced-packaging fabs in Taiwan, with company-wide capex of $60 billion to $64 billion this year.

The faster pace has encouraged the addition of a contractor’s safety record as a weight in selection and a plan for a Taiwan Semiconductor Construction Engineering Safety Association with construction partners. TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei said at last year’s shareholders meeting that safety cannot be compromised, and the company’s 2025 annual report said it will keep investing in fabs across several locations in Taiwan “with a strong emphasis on construction site safety.”

Cliff Hou, TSMC senior vice president and deputy co-COO, told Business Today that increased worker count and overlapping construction have raised the risk, requiring careful supervision, and that TSMC’s contractor lost-time injury rate had fallen about 42% from last year’s high as of late May, when the publication toured the Nanzi site to see the overhaul. It’s too early to call the program a failure, with the cause as yet unknown.

The accident comes less than a week after an explosion killed two people at Intel’s chip plant in Israel, though that was an operating fab rather than a construction site. Both accidents come as chipmakers race to meet demand, with global chip sales passing $1 trillion through August, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

The STSP’s findings will determine what penalties, if any, will fall under Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Act, while it assists the victims’ families. No date has been given at this time for that or for the Phase 4 steel hoisting restart. Nor has TSMC commented on any schedule impact.

Protesters disrupted Jensen Huang's Nvidia GTC keynote in Berlin on Wednesday morning. Just minutes into the CEO's customary address, the broadcast was interrupted by a heckler from the crowd demanding the CEO answer claims that the company's chips were found inside Russian drones, and charges of environmental destruction more broadly. While the incident wasn't fully picked up by Nvidia's livestream, footage filmed by attendees shows protestors standing on chairs with a large banner that reads "Nvidia, clean up your dirty business!"

Multiple videos and images shared to X show protestors brandishing a large banner with a Greenpeace logo. "Jensen, what about the technology that was found in Russian drones? Those were Nvidia chips. What are you doing about that?" one of the protestors called out across the auditorium. "What are you doing about that? What are you doing about the environmental destruction?" the heckler demanded.

Huang can be heard on the broadcast and in the video stating, "It's okay, go easy," as security rushed to escort the protesters out of the hall. "I'll talk to you later," Huang stated as the individuals were removed from the premises.

The complaint raised by the protester appears to relate to recent reports that Nvidia Jetson chips have been found in Russian cruise missiles used against Ukraine, as well as in AI drones. Reports indicate Russia's S-71 'Monochrome' weapon has autonomous targeting capability powered by Nvidia's consumer-grade Jetson Orin chip. "Our Jetson Orin modules are consumer-grade products sold to students, developers, and startups for a wide range of beneficial applications," Nvidia told Tom's Hardware at the time. The company reiterated that the chips are not available in Russia and are not designed for military purposes, but admitted it cannot track the resale of pre-owned Jetson chips after they are sold.

A report in August claimed that a Russian AI drone killed three civilians in Ukraine, the first documented case of civilian deaths caused by a Russian drone using fully autonomous targeting. Images of the recovered drones confirmed they contained Jetson Orin modules. "All important issues, but let me get through my keynote," Huang quipped before continuing his presentation.

Huang is in Berlin for Nvidia's three-day GTC event, taking place from October 20-22. The customary keynote, given this morning, also includes fireside chats and talks for developers and business leaders.

Earlier this year, AMD brought the previously RX 9000-exclusive FSR 4 upscaling tech to Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards and promised an early 2027 release for RX 6000-series products. Christmas has come early for RDNA 2 and many other Radeon gamers, as Radeon honcho Jack Hyunh has announced an FSR 4.1 release for Radeon RX 6000 series cards, Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, Ryzen Z-series handhelds, and machines with Ryzen AI Max and AI 9 chips today.

To accomplish this feat, AMD says it tweaked FSR 4.1's neural network model to support the INT8 shader hardware (as opposed to the higher-precision FP8 matrix acceleration hardware on Radeon 9000 cards). Additionally, the version specific to handhelds is slimmed down even further, to less than half the size of the full one.

AMD says that compared to FSR 3, games on the aforementioned GPUs and APUs will now deliver better image quality, all else equal. With Cyberpunk 2077 running in FSR Balanced mode at 4K, our quick testing with a Radeon RX 6900 XT shows that running FSR 4 costs just about 13% performance, a small price to pay for sharper and more stable visuals, especially in motion.

And the higher upscaling quality of FSR 4.1 might let gamers use Performance mode where they might previously have used Balanced, or so on, which might offset that performance cost.

There are more goodies in store, too. The Radeon team says that FSR Frame Generation now ought to have better frame pacing, resolving a longstanding complaint with the tech and potentially making for smoother gameplay with framegen enabled. Support for the Vulkan API with FSR 4.1 is set to arrive at some point, as well, a boon for some games and console emulators. Finally, AMD says FSR Ray Regeneration will also be coming to more games, too. The company showed the tech running in Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and that integration is available now.

To get all this goodness into your GPU, you can download the just-released Radeon 26.10.1 drivers from the AMD Adrenalin application or directly from AMD's website. The updated software also adds support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, and Final Fantasy Resonance. You can check out the full release notes here.

For owners of Xbox and Ryzen Z2-series handhelds, AMD says that an update from their manufacturers will be forthcoming, as those devices depend on OEM-specific drivers.

We're pleased to see that Radeon gamers are getting upgrades for their existing graphics chips along the lines of what Nvidia has been delivering throughout 2025, because the way things are going, it looks like it'll be around 2077 before there will be a new gaming graphics card launch. If you're an RDNA 2 gamer, go give FSR 4 a shot and see what you think.

TP-Link is fully determined to get in the good graces of the U.S. government to break free from a total ban on newly developed routers manufactured outside of the country. Although TP-Link is incorporated in the U.S. with a headquarters in Irvine, California, the company has been under pressure from the full weight of the U.S. government because of its historical Chinese roots. However, in an effort to appeal to the Trump administration’s zeal for creating jobs and touting American manufacturing, TP-Link this week announced that it has signed a letter of intent to assemble routers in the U.S. through a crucial partnership with Key Tronic.

How did we get here?

The ongoing saga started back in late 2024, when the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested that the Department of Commerce investigate TP-Link. At the time, the committee warned that “TP-Link products are also found on U.S. military bases, with the Army and Air Force Exchange and the Navy Exchange selling these devices to members of the military and their families,” and claimed TP-Link routers were sending user data back to China.

The select committee implored the Department of Commerce to use its broad powers to investigate TP-Link and take any necessary action to mitigate threats to national security. The campaign against TP-Link ramped up in mid-2025, with 17 members of Congress petitioning the Commerce Department to ban the sale of the company’s hardware in the U.S. due to alleged deep ties to the CCP. In late 2025, 23 U.S. House members and Senators again asked the Commerce Department to investigate TP-Link’s actions, including adding the company to the Covered List, investigating any threats to national security, and informing the public about potential risks associated with using the company’s devices.

The situation reached a boiling point in March 2026, when TP-Link and other router manufacturers were added to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Covered List, forbidding the sale of foreign-made routers in the U.S. that hadn’t already been approved. At the time, the FCC noted, “Recently, malicious state and non-state sponsored cyber attackers have increasingly leveraged the vulnerabilities in small and home office routers produced abroad to carry out direct attacks against American civilians in their homes. From disrupting network connectivity to enabling local networking espionage and intellectual property theft, foreign-produced routers present unacceptable risks to Americans.”

Since that time, several things have changed, with none of them being positive developments for TP-Link. Over the past six months, Amazon, Asus, and Netgear have all gained conditional approvals from the FCC to sell new wireless products in the U.S., while TP-Link has been stonewalled (conditional approvals are valid for 18 months from the date of issuance). Considering that TP-Link has been the world’s largest provider of Wi-Fi routers and associated devices for over a decade, losing access to the U.S. market for its new line of Wi-Fi 8 devices is a significant blow. This was readily apparent in late September when TP-Link opened preorders for its Archer 8 Ultra Wi-Fi 8 router. The company announced that the router would be available in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia. However, the U.S. was conspicuously absent from that list because of the ongoing ban.

Adding insult to injury, earlier this month, multiple states (including Florida, Montana, Iowa, and Nebraska) sued TP-Link Systems, alleging that the company has made false and misleading claims about the security capabilities of its products and continued ties to China.

“TP-Link’s conduct has placed Montana consumers at risk of harm by making their home and small-office networks vulnerable to exploitation and intrusion by foreign actors with a proven track record of nefarious conduct. That risk is ongoing: many consumers keep their routers for years, and many of the compromised TP-Link models in Montana homes do not support automatic firmware updates and no longer receive security support at all,” stated Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

Knudsen further claimed that while TP-Link touts that it employs 300 people in the U.S., the bulk of its workforce (numbering over 11,000 employees) conducts development and manufacturing operations in China. “Further, TP-Link claims to manufacture its U.S.-market products in Vietnam, but less than one percent of the components by value are sourced in Vietnam, and the rest are imported from or through China,” Knudsen added.

“Iowans’ sensitive data and our national security is at risk because of TP-Link and their connection to the communist Chinese government,” stated Iowa Attorney General Bird. “TP-Link tells Iowans its routers are safe, our personal data is secure, and that they have no ties to China. They are not telling the truth. It’s time to hold China and China-backed companies accountable.”

TP-Link barks back

Up until this point, TP-Link has vehemently denied any ties to the Chinese government and has refuted similar allegations from one of its primary competitors, Netgear. However, on October 13, the company issued its sharpest rebuttal yet in a letter to the FCC. TP-Link touted its “America-first” strategy and chastised the state lawsuits brought earlier this month.

“A group of 21 state-level officials recently raised a scattershot barrage of baseless and previously debunked allegations relating to TP-Link’s confidential, non-public application,” TP-Link exclaimed. Rather than seeking to advance legitimate public policy objectives, the letter appears aimed primarily at encouraging federal officials to apply a heightened standard to TP-Link’s pending application that would be unattainable to TP-Link or any other router manufacturer in the world.”

TP-Link stated that its innovation in the router space earned its position as the market leader in the U.S., and that the constant barrage of legal fights and war of words is undermining fair competition and is an actual threat to national security and critical infrastructure given the broad proliferation of its products.

To that end, TP-Link reiterated that it has officially filed for conditional approval from the FCC, so that it can specifically sell two next-generation Wi-Fi 8 routers in the U.S. The company noted, “As the United States positions itself as a leader in wireless technology, a Conditional Approval would guarantee American consumers access to the same cutting-edge wireless equipment that will soon be available in other parts of the world."

TP-Link proposes $1 billion investment in the U.S.

With its back against the ropes, TP-Link is appealing to the U.S. government in the best way it knows how: with money and jobs. If there’s anything that the U.S. government likes, it’s investment in manufacturing on its own soil and high-paying jobs to bolster local economies. To help push the U.S. government along in approving a conditional approval to sell Wi-Fi 8 hardware, TP-Link has signed a letter of intent with Key Tronic to manufacture routers in the U.S. instead of importing them from Vietnam. More specifically, the routers would be assembled in Corinth, Mississippi.

“This LOI with Key Tronic demonstrates our firm commitment to expanding domestic advanced manufacturing, and establishing America as our base for delivering secure, reliable connectivity solutions to households and businesses around the world,” said TP-Link Systems Inc. CEO Jeffrey Chao. “By choosing to assemble cutting-edge products here at home, we are thrilled to support U.S. high-tech job growth and empower a new generation of American innovation and innovators.”

TP-Link hopes that the investment will cut through most of the red tape that is currently preventing it from selling its latest products stateside. However, it remains to be seen if these latest sweeteners will be enough to sway President Trump and the agencies under his purview. As the company notes, it was the first to deliver Wi-Fi 7 routers in the U.S., and it wants to continue that leadership position by offering the first Wi-Fi 8 routers. The hardware is ready to go, as evidenced by the opening of preorders; it’s just currently being held up by roadblocks at the federal level, along with added pressure from state governments.

Until that time, Wi-Fi 8 products like the Archer 8 Ultra and Deco 8 Ultra will remain off-limits to Americans, which have given TP-Link a reported 65 percent share of the U.S. consumer router market.