The AI chip wave is disrupting the technology industry in 2023.

The US, China, Europe are racing to achieve self-reliance in AI chips while the tech world witnesses a series of events amidst the GPU drought.

The AI generative explosion sweeps the tech sector in 2023. But behind the market excitemetors. In Latin America, the Community Reactivation Project reignited meetups across nine cities, fostering a network of over 150 active members and setting the stage for three new WordCamps in 2025.

WordPress’s efforts also advanced through Openverse, which expanded its free content library to 884 million images and 4.2 million audio files, serving millions of creators worldwide and supporting WordPress’s broader mission of democratizing publishing.

Whether through educational platforms, developer-driven innovation, or community-led projects, WordPress’s ecosystem continues to nurture shared learning, creativity, and collaboration, ensuring its growth and relevance for future generations.

Japanese Community Highlights

Junko Fukui Nukaga—Community Team rep, program manager, and WordCamp organizer—noted that WordPress’s prominence in Japan contributes to an economy now estimated to exceed 100 billion yen.

In October of 2024, the Japanese WordPress community celebrated DigitalCube’s IPO on the Tokyo PRO Market, marking a milestone for the local WordPress ecosystem. Major contributors like Takayuki Miyoshi’s Contact Form 7 plugin surpassed 10 million active users, while companies like Sakura Internet and XServer built specialized WordPress infrastructure.

Community events in Japan have also flourished, with 189 local meetups held throughout the year, fueled by dedicated volunteers and organizers. Translation Night gatherings have ensured WordPress remains accessible to Japanese users, reflecting a thriving collaborative spirit.

Matt gave special recognition to Japan’s standout contributor, Aki Hamano, a Core Committer whose exceptional efforts elevated WordPress development over the past year. Hamano-san made an impressive 774 contributions to WordPress core, earning 162 props for WordPress 6.5, rising to 274 props for 6.6 as the second-highest contributor, and securing the top spot with 338 props for 6.7.Other notable Japanese contributors included Akira Tachibana, an active Docs Team member, and Nukaga, recognized for her exceptional community organizing efforts. Additionally, 13 Japanese contributors supported 5.4% of WordPress 6.6 development, showcasing the country’s growing influence in the WordPress ecosystem.

Data Liberation

Reflecting on the progress since the initiative’s launch last year, the focus remained on ensuring that WordPress not only becomes more powerful but also embodies freedom in its deepest sense—the freedom to move content anywhere, collaborate without limits, and create without constraints. This vision extends beyond individual sites to a broader web where content flows seamlessly across platforms, enabling unrestricted creativity and innovation.

One compelling example demonstrated how easily ePub files could be imported into a WordPress site, integrating seamlessly with existing designs. This represents the initiative’s broader goal: making content migration and integration effortless. WordPress Playground plays a critical role in this vision by enabling easy site migration through a simple browser extension. With Playground as a staging area, migrating and adapting sites becomes intuitive and accessible.

Q&A

The floor was opened to questions in both Japanese and Eng

In the opposite direction, Chinese chip manufacturers are optimistic about the embargo and see it as an incentive to easily access the $41 billion fund. According to Reuters, the Big Fund is being quietly prepared by the Chinese government to achieve chip self-reliance, balancing the US’s $53 billion fund.

Europe also did not sit still when it approved a $47 billion semiconductor support package in April, with the goal of doubling the continent’s chip production market share to 20% by 2030. SCMP cited Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market at the European Commission, that this is the EU’s latest effort to catch up with the US and Asia in terms of manufacturing capabilities.

A new race

Chips are not only at the center of the tech war between superpowers or between semiconductor manufacturers, they are also related to many undisclosed secrets of the tech world.

On November 17, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was suddenly fired but reinstated after 5 days. In documents accessed by Wired, in 2019 OpenAI signed a $51 million deal to buy chips from Rain AI. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, less than a mile from OpenAI, and researches a type of neuromorphic processing unit (NPU) that mimics the human brain. Rain AI was expected to launch its first product in October the following year. Notably, Altman, in his personal capacity, also invested $1 million in the company.

For many years, Altman has often complained about the exorbitant costs of AI chips and predicted that artificial intelligence could create a “brutal crisis” around chips, while affirming that the pace of AI ​​development will depend on new chip designs and supply chains.

2023 ends with a series of “battle” announcements from the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers. AMD says its MI300X processor, part of the Instinct MI300 series dedicated to generative AI models, has specifications comparable to Nvidia’s most powerful H100. Last month, Microsoft unveiled the Azure Maia 100 chip to compete with Nvidia. On December 14, Intel unveiled the Gaudi3 chip dedicated to generative AI. Meanwhile, on November 13, Nvidia also announced the H200 model, expected to hit the market in Q2/2024, and is expected to “make a huge leap forward in performance, especially in the reasoning ability of large AI data models”.

Experts predict that AI chips will remain one of the focal points of the tech industry next year as generative AI continues to explode, while general AI (AGI) may soon become a reality as specialized GPUs are upgraded.