Technology

Sponsorships Still Win In Niche Sports; For AI Ads, Perplexity’s No Google

The Home Run When every ad impression is carefully bid on and monetized, it’s hard for advertisers to score outsized wins. Mailchimp probably wouldn’t have been able to sponsor the entire Serial podcast, which became a smash hit, if it had been possible to buy podcast ads programmatically back then. The exception is sports. […]

Published

5 days ago

May 29, 2025

Your Sports Nation

The Home Run

When every ad impression is carefully bid on and monetized, it’s hard for advertisers to score outsized wins.

Mailchimp probably wouldn’t have been able to sponsor the entire Serial podcast, which became a smash hit, if it had been possible to buy podcast ads programmatically back then.

The exception is sports.

There are always brands willing to place a bet on unusual sporting events in the hope that they have a breakout moment, like Timbersports, for example. Or remember when finance brand Ramp sponsored a motley crew of non-top players at the Masters last year, one of whom hit a hole in one and another who luckily paired with Tiger Woods on the tournament’s biggest day?

Which brings us to a piece in Marketing Brew about Tata Consultancy Services, a B2B tech services provider that now sponsors five of the seven top marathon races, plus more in the next tier.

B2B consulting is not “a sector that you get emotional or excited about,” says Tata’s Global CMO Abhinav Kumar. But marathoners appreciate their sponsor, and many of Tata’s clients and employees are runners.

The company’s analytics shows that its brand consideration among nonrunners is 27%, while 67% of B2B account targets who run races place Tata in their consideration set.

A Perplexing Situation

When generative AI search engine Perplexity launched its ad business six months ago, it was a first mover and shaker in the category. But the sheen wears off quickly.

For one, Google is also now pushing ads into generative AI searches. And while advertisers might be intrigued by Perplexity’s offerings, including its merchant program for shopping recommendations, there are already concerns about efficiency and reach.

Perplexity gets points, however, for being “the first AI platform to make a splash with advertising” and for continuing to “lead the way in integrating commerce into the AI search process,” Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights, tells Digiday.

But its 22 million active users are no match for ChatGPT’s 400 million – or Google’s billions of AI Overviews in traditional search feeds.

That said, there is interest in being an early adopter of Perplexity among clients, says Robert Kurtz, strategic business outcomes partner at Basis Technologies. The problem is they’re not committing budgets yet because of Perplexity’s “low scale and because of its focus on awareness compared to other options,” he said.

The Name Game

GroupM has officially rebranded to WPP Media.

In an interview with Ad Age, WPP CEO Mark Read and WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser pitched the move as a way to make it clear the holdco is bringing its various agency groups under the purview of one new entity.

WPP Media will manage WPP’s $60 billion media-buying portfolio across 80 markets. WPP agencies including Mindshare, Wavemaker and EssenceMediacom will no longer operate independently, but as teams under the WPP Media umbrella.

Alongside the rebrand, WPP is also launching a B2B marketing campaign to promote its new federated AI marketing model. The model relies on data connections with many independent partners, rather than acquiring and warehousing data assets.

GroupM’s rebrand is the latest indication of how agency holding companies are reinventing themselves in light of digital marketing’s AI revolution.

The pending merger between Omnicom and IPG knocks WPP off its pedestal as the largest agency holdco by revenue. Plus, WPP’s revenue shrank 1% in 2024. But WPP sees an opportunity for a fresh start with buyers demanding more AI capabilities from their agency partners, Lesser tells Ad Age.

“Clients care less about the brand on the door,” Lesser says, “and more about the people that work for their business and the technology that’s powering our operations.”

But Wait! There’s More

Horizon Media has RFPs out for vendors in a plan to build a partner network behind its Blu marketing platform. [Ad Age]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says AI companies are “sugarcoating” the truth, which is that AI could wipe out half of white-collar jobs and spike US unemployment. [Axios]

SEO remains relevant for web publishers despite the rise of AI. [Search Engine Journal]

Netflix Co-Founder Reed Hastings joins Anthropic’s board of directors. [TechCrunch]

You’re Hired!

David Droga is stepping down from his role as CEO of creative consultancy Accenture Song. Ndidi Oteh, the current Accenture Song Americas lead, will take over as CEO in September. [Adweek]

AI video platform Waymark brings on Michael Tuminello as director of product. [release]

AdLib adds Kenton Nguyen, Pragya Bharti and Calvin D’Souza as strategic account managers, and Andrew Jaquez and Katelyn Smith as campaign managers. [release]

Thanks for reading AdExchanger’s daily news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Link

Technology

Of Golf, Deregulation and the Future of TV

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—One of the most striking developments to emerge at the 2025 Golfweek Tech Lab gathering here May 15 at the J.W. Marriott was the laser-like focus placed by several startup tech firms, the venture capital community and the PGA Tour itself on fan engagement technology. Companies like Bleachr, Cue, Mobii and PlayANYWHERE showed the […]

Published

8 minutes ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—One of the most striking developments to emerge at the 2025 Golfweek Tech Lab gathering here May 15 at the J.W. Marriott was the laser-like focus placed by several startup tech firms, the venture capital community and the PGA Tour itself on fan engagement technology.

Companies like Bleachr, Cue, Mobii and PlayANYWHERE showed the 90 attendees their unique spins on elevating the experience of fans engaging with golf and other sports via their smartphones and other connected devices.

Not to be outdone, the PGA Tour is pursuing its own fan engagement strategy. “One of the big cultural shifts over the past five or six years is meeting the fans where they are,” says Scott Gutterman, senior vice president, Digital & Broadcast, for the PGA Tour, noting the tour is “getting closer and closer to the personalization … that people want.”

Also Read: CBS Sports Adds Innovative AR to Massive PGA Championship Coverage

Speaking during a fireside chat on the way technology is being used to capture a younger audience, Gutterman discussed how the PGA Tour is using AI platforms to “tell a story about every shot”—no small feat, given the 30,000 to 32,000 shots made during a typical tour event.

Each of those mini-stories will ultimately serve as the foundation of a service that delivers highlights to fans of their favorite players on their smartphones “when they’re running around town going to [kids’] soccer games, but they want to keep up,” he said.

Of course, the PGA Tour already relies on a variety of digital platforms, ranging from streaming via ESPN+ to distributing highlights via TikTok, to keep fans engaged with daily play as tournaments unfold.

“When I first arrived at the Tour [20 years ago], the rule was to get people to watch three hours of golf every single day,” Gutterman said. “Now really our stance on this has changed. How do we bring fans to the PGA Tour in any way? How do we meet fans where they are?”

What enables this innovation to drive deeper fan engagement? It would seem to be the same thing responsible for the countless other innovations that improve the lives of people in this country: freedom and the desire to profit.

But what about television broadcasters? Are they free to leverage the latest technologies to deliver the same sorts of personalized experiences with the content they broadcast to engage their “fans,” the viewers, more deeply and unlock new sources of revenue?

Enter Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s Delete, Delete, Delete deregulation initiative. The public notice announcing it said in part: “The Communications Act directs the FCC to regularly review its rules to identify and eliminate those that are unnecessary in light of current circumstances, recognizing that in addition to imposing unnecessary burdens, unnecessary rules may stand in the way of deployment, expansion, competition and technological innovation in communications that the Commission is directed to advance.”

Setting aside comments and reply comments filed at the agency with regards to NAB’s rulemaking petition aimed at having the agency establish dates certain for the ATSC 1.0 shutoff, I can’t help but read that quote and think about how rules are standing in the way of broadcasters’ “deployment, expansion, competition, and technological innovation.”

Some in this industry seem to be most interested in delete, delete, delete when it comes to ownership rules. But for the long-term health of the industry, it is equally important that the agency eliminate rules stifling tech innovation.

Link

Technology

Audio Mixers Tap New Tech to Bring Sports Fans Closer to the Action

Sports fans today don’t just want to watch the game—they want to feel it. From surround sound to live player chats, the push for immersive sports audio is changing how we experience the action. This is why “all current trends from both the creative and technological side focus on the same objective: Access and bringing […]

Published

50 minutes ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Sports fans today don’t just want to watch the game—they want to feel it. From surround sound to live player chats, the push for immersive sports audio is changing how we experience the action.

This is why “all current trends from both the creative and technological side focus on the same objective: Access and bringing fans closer to this great game,” says Jason Hedgcock, Major League Baseball’s senior director of technical production and special projects for Apple TV+.

Hedgcock’s comments are focused on baseball, but his observations apply broadly across sports broadcasting. “The use of alternative audio channels has allowed fans to access games in native languages,” he says. “Placing microphones and IFBs on players has given fans the opportunity to better see the personality of the players in the moment of action. And Dolby Atmos has offered a unique opportunity to sonically place a fan at home in the center of the action in the ballpark.

“As such, I fully expect broadcasts to continue to lean into these workflows and technology to bring fans through their screen and into the park and onto the field.”

Casual sports fans want more access to player/athlete audio, according to Joseph Carpenter, an audio mixer for Fox Sports. “In golf, the player-caddy conversation continues to increase in demand.”

On network telecasts, announcers must be more aware of opportunities to listen in and, in some cases, are even instructed to lay out during these moments, Carpenter adds.

“TGL Golf is a new concept, with all the players wearing microphones and earpieces in order to allow the strategy and interaction to be heard at all times,” he says. “In baseball, it has become commonplace now to interview a player while he is on the field and actively playing.”

During an Apple TV+ “Friday Night Baseball” broadcast, Minnesota Twins shortstop Carlos Correa took questions from the booth while playing shortstop, “providing a look into how veteran leaders engage with their teammates on very human things like player health and how to best support a team,” Hedgcock says.

SMPTE ST 2110 Driving the Change
As more operations transition to SMPTE ST 2110—which allows the transport of uncompressed, high-quality media over internet protocol—the remote A1 [primary audio technician] has had to develop more expertise in IT and system networking, according to Florian Brown, ESPN senior audio supervisor.

Florian Brown, ESPN’s Senior Audio Supervisor

Florian Brown, ESPN’s Senior Audio Supervisor (Image credit: ESPN)

“The interconnected nature of 2110 allows for granular control over devices and even complex systems like audio consoles from remote locations,” he says. “This gives us the creative freedom to manipulate incoming sources remotely, which opens up exciting possibilities for sweetening audio and isolating specific sounds to enhance the broadcast.”

Brown isn’t alone in viewing 2110 as a game-changer. Carpenter, a 35-year veteran, says he has seen a number of transitions, but “the current wave of audio-over-IP solutions is certainly one of the more impactful shifts I’ve witnessed. High-quality audio being seamlessly transported and decoded across varying platforms and hosts has become commonplace with the latest coalescence of 2110 and real-time protocols.”

Brown concurs. “As we reach the full potential of 2110 connectivity, we continue to push into a more immersive experience for the consumer,” he says. “The demand for richer audio certainly goes hand-in-hand with
higher-quality video.”

Giving broadcasters the ability to support multilingual audio commentary using 2110 helps Apple TV+, ESPN, Fox Sports and other media outlets attract viewers in an increasingly fragmented media market. But these two trends have to be deployed in tandem to deliver the desired result.

“In a diversifying media landscape, simply putting the game on isn’t enough to attract and engage an audience,” Hedgcock says. “You need to be creative in the storytelling. [Now] the human aspect of the game is one of the hardest things to capture, so the intimacy that audio can provide is a powerful tool broadcasters can use to drive humanity home. Rather than a simple natural sound mix to hear the roar of the crowd, a 5.1 or 7.2 mix can be used to place a fan among their peers in the park.”

Even Better Sports Audio Is Coming
As captivating as today’s multichannel immersive sports audio is, more progress may yet be needed to deliver its full impact to viewers.

“Much like the brief attempt to broadcast video in 3D required wearing glasses, I feel as though the current trend to deliver immersive sound to viewers at home will require a quantum leap in affordable home theater equipment,” Carpenter says. “That being said, the quality of audio being delivered to portable devices like smartphones and tablets is hitting its stride.”

As for the future of sports audio? “A fully matured 2110 environment for broadcasters and end users will allow us to isolate even more detail and emotion from a sporting event,” Brown says. “This will give us the ability to define the user experience at the source and deliver that to the customer as intended, without third-party manipulation. That is the ultimate goal, and we are well on our way.”

As fans continue to migrate to mobile devices and use headphones to listen to broadcasts, some of the next generation of innovation will focus on “getting the big sounds out of little speakers,” according to Hedgcock.

“Similar to how musical mixers leaned into mixes for radio for years, I expect sports mixers to listen to their shows on various headphone options, both over-the-ear and in-ear, to fine-tune their mixes,” he says. “I also think we will see even greater use of on-field player microphones, plus the reemergence of the all-audio games that MLB Network tested back in 2012. These games—where the broadcast team largely laid out, letting the sounds of the ballpark and players dominate the audio track—would offer an incredibly unique experience and can be made available as a complement to the traditional broadcast.”

Fox Sports uses parabolic mics to enhance on-field audio during UFL games.

Fox Sports uses parabolic mics to enhance on-field audio during UFL games. (Image credit: Fox Sports)

Carpenter is very optimistic about sports audio’s future progress and impact.

“I believe now that video quality has reached such incredible heights, and super slow motion has become ubiquitous in instant replay for referee and umpire calls in all sports, that audio is becoming the next frontier in captivating viewers’ attention and bringing to light the true level of athleticism and passion we have begun to take for granted as technology advances,” he says. “In the meantime, I will continue to try to innovate new ways to push the sonic envelope and ‘bring it to the people’ at home.”

Again, all of these sports audio innovations share a common goal: Shrinking the distance between athlete and audience. In a world of fragmented attention and media overload, sound may be the clearest path to the hearts—and loyalty—of today’s viewers.

Link

Technology

Disney fires hundreds in film, TV as industry woes drag on – The Mercury News

By Thomas Buckley | Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. is laying off several hundred employees across its film and TV businesses, cuts that underscore the tough times in Hollywood are far from over. The staff reductions began Monday and are falling on employees in marketing, publicity, casting and development, along with corporate financial operations, according to […]

Published

52 minutes ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

By Thomas Buckley | Bloomberg

Walt Disney Co. is laying off several hundred employees across its film and TV businesses, cuts that underscore the tough times in Hollywood are far from over.

The staff reductions began Monday and are falling on employees in marketing, publicity, casting and development, along with corporate financial operations, according to the company.

Hollywood has been in a cost-cutting mode for years, with production and employment in a downward spiral. The Burbank-based Disney announced a retrenchment in February 2023, eliminating 7,000 jobs in a bid to cut expenses by $5.5 billion. The company later increased that target to $7.5 billion. Competitors have also laid off thousands of workers.

Disney’s latest reductions follow roughly 200 job cuts across Disney’s ABC and entertainment TV networks in March. In all, the company has eliminated more than 8,000 positions in recent years as it seeks to improve profitability.

Monday’s layoffs were first reported by the entertainment industry publication Deadline. Disney had about 233,000 employees at the end of its last fiscal year in September, including 76% full time.

Originally Published: June 3, 2025 at 5:17 AM PDT

Link

Technology

Breaking the Mold of Traditional Gaming Headphones! HAVIT Unveils Strategic 2025 Audio Innovation at ES Poland

WARSAW, Poland, June 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As a leading brand in smart technology, HAVIT has not only cultivated expertise in acoustics for over two decades but also achieved groundbreaking progress in gaming peripherals. At the Poland ES Expo, HAVIT proudly presents the revolutionary FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo, introducing the industry-first OHS (Open-Headphone Stereo) architecture that […]

Published

1 hour ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Explore our comprehensive lineup of spatial audio innovations. We cordially invite attendees to experience these transformative products at our exhibition booth.

HAVIT Unveils Strategic 2025 Audio Innovation at ES Poland

Exhibition Details
Dates: 2025.6.13-2025.6.15
Booth: B1.03
Location: Warsaw, Poland

FUXI-H8: Redefining E-sports Acoustics Through Leading Innovation

Engineered for gaming enthusiasts, the FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo headset features the pioneering open-headphone stereo (OHS). Its hollow-out ear cups and ultra-soft cushions eradicate discomfort during extended use, while avant-garde design commands attention.

Equipped with advanced spatial audio technology and dynamic head tracking, the FUXI-H8 Gaming Open-Headphone Stereo headset creates 360° soundscapes for precise enemy localization. Three operational modes enhance both immersive experience and competitive advantage through seamless switching.

Six connectivity modes ensure universal compatibility across devices, enabling uninterrupted gaming transitions.

FUXI Series Elevates Professional Esports, Radiates Global Influence

HAVIT Gaming empowers Brazil’s VKS Esports team with professional-grade peripherals, particularly through headsets featuring dynamic head-tracking spatial audio that exposes enemy positions. In high-stakes competitions where victory hinges on millisecond decisions, HAVIT’s reliable acoustic technology enables players to strike first. What once seemed extraordinary becomes routine when equipped with HAVIT Gaming gear.

Dominating Brazil’s Amazon and Mercado Libre, HAVIT claims No.1 market share in gaming headsets through technological prowess. From Brazil through Latin America to global markets, HAVIT remains committed to delivering cutting-edge technology that helps players transcend limits and dominate virtual battlegrounds.

About HAVIT

HAVIT is a global consumer technology brand and an innovator in smart listening experiences.

Our success in gaming peripherals stems from profound user understanding and groundbreaking technological exploration. Since inception, HAVIT has integrated global resources through large-scale innovation in manufacturing, R&D, omnichannel solutions, and brand development. Connecting user needs with technological advancement across 100+ countries, we create win-win ecosystems while infusing technology with human-centric designs. Make every product interaction a compelling experiential journey.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2696448/pr.jpg

Link

Technology

Tesonet invests in Lithuanian SportsTech startup FPRO

Tesonet is investing €2 million in the Lithuanian SportsTech startup FPRO. This is FPRO’s first round of outside investment, marking a new phase in its development. The funds will help the startup to leverage smart tech solutions to expand professional training opportunities in youth football worldwide. A made-in-Lithuania solution for the global football market FPRO […]

Published

2 hours ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

A made-in-Lithuania solution for the global football market

FPRO is a SportsTech startup that is developing innovative football training solutions for children. Working in collaboration with UEFA-certified coaches and experts in sports science, FPRO has devised a unique interactive app for children ages 6 through 12. The app is designed to improve their technique, coordination and ball control skills.

Having founded the Football Pro Academy back in 2018, founders Ernestas Pilypas, Darius Jankauskas, and Vilius Petkevičius were forced to move operations online during the pandemic. This was the impetus behind the development of their digital product, which was released in 2022. The platform’s user base currently consists of 140,000+ children from the UK, Germany, the US, and other countries. Most of the company’s revenue comes from sales outside of their home market.

“Football is the most popular sport in the world, but the market is currently short on qualified coaches. We wanted to create a solution that would be accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial means or location. FPRO fills this gap by offering young athletes an accessible, tech-driven method geared towards raising their physical fitness and developing their personalities in a comprehensive way. It helps to build their self-confidence, discipline, and passion for football through a focused and personalised coaching process. We see Tesonet’s investment as confirmation that we’re on the right track,” said Vilius Petkevičius, co-founder of FPRO.

Ambitious partnership for innovation in children’s sports

“The sports technology market has enormous potential, and football unites billions of people worldwide. Given our substantial experience with SportsTech, the latest investment reflects our strategy to expand the sports innovation ecosystem while strengthening the community both in Lithuania and globally. This is a profitable and growing startup with a broad user base, an unstoppable team, and founders who are experts in their field. It’s a perfect combination, and one that mirrors our own values,” commented Tomas Okmanas, co-founder of Tesonet.

Tesonet co-founder Eimantas Sabaliauskas added: “When making a decision to invest, we consider not only market potential, but also a given team’s vision and ability to solve real problems on a global scale. FPRO has created a strong product, and our goal as investors is to help them not just financially but also in terms of strategy. We see clear synergies where our contribution could help them optimise business processes, develop new revenue streams, expand their user base, and further accelerate growth internationally.”

Another SportsTech investment in Tesonet’s portfolio

This is not our first venture in the sports vertical. In 2022, we acquired shares in BC Žalgiris Kaunas, helping the basketball club with its digital transformation and commercial expansion. Then in 2024, we invested in basketball club BC London Lions, aiming to promote the development of young talent and bolster the club’s competitiveness internationally.

ABOUT TESONET:

Tesonet is one of the largest venture builders and investors in the Baltic States. It houses globally recognized companies such as joint cybersecurity powerhouse Nord Security and Surfshark, a market-leading web intelligence collection platform Oxylabs, the fastest-growing brand among hosting providers Hostinger, nexos.ai – an AI orchestration platform, and others.

With over 3,500 in-house talents and a fully developed infrastructure, Tesonet supports, funds, and scales businesses globally. Since 2018, Tesonet has extended its reach by investing in successful ventures like Hostinger, Cast AI, Eneba, BC Žalgiris, London Lions, Artea, Zapp, Turing College, and others.

Tesonet is known for its innovative ecosystem and strong infrastructure, which support product development, testing, and global growth. The company is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and helping grow the broader ecosystem.

ABOUT FPRO:

FPRO is a sports technology startup dedicated to developing innovative training solutions for children’s football. Collaborating with UEFA-certified coaches and sports university experts, FPRO has created a unique interactive mobile app designed to help children aged 6–12 improve their technique, coordination, and ball control skills.Currently, the platform is being used by over 140,000 children across the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and other countries.

Link

Technology

Track Hyper | NVIDIA partners with MediaTek to enter the esports laptop market

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street News Global GPU leader NVIDIA is collaborating with MediaTek to develop high-performance APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), which is planned to be launched as early as early 2026, in partnership with Dell’s gaming brand Alienware to introduce new machines. If this collaboration materializes, it will break AMD’s monopoly in the […]

Published

2 hours ago

June 3, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street News

Global GPU leader NVIDIA is collaborating with MediaTek to develop high-performance APU (Accelerated Processing Unit), which is planned to be launched as early as early 2026, in partnership with Dell’s gaming brand Alienware to introduce new machines.

If this collaboration materializes, it will break AMD’s monopoly in the APU field and reshape the competitive landscape of the gaming laptop market.

The collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek focuses on the deep integration of heterogeneous computing. The APU will adopt NVIDIA’s latest Blackwell architecture GPU module (speculated to be a simplified version of GB206 or GB207) and integrate MediaTek’s customized Arm architecture CPU cores.

The Blackwell architecture is based on TSMC’s 4nm process, with its third-generation RT Core (Ray Tracing Core) and fourth-generation Tensor Core (dedicated hardware unit) achieving breakthroughs of 2x ray tracing performance improvement and 4x AI inference speed enhancement.

Taking GB206 as an example, it is equipped with 36 SMs (Streaming Multiprocessors), 4608 CUDA cores, paired with 128-bit GDDR7 memory, with overall performance expected to be close to the 65W version of the RTX 4070 mobile graphics card, significantly surpassing the existing mobile APU graphics performance.

The new generation CPU core after MediaTek’s Cortex-X925 (similar to the Dimensity 9500 architecture) can provide efficient multitasking capabilities, and after collaborative optimization with the GPU, the overall energy efficiency ratio is improved by about 30%.

By sharing the power supply system and collaborative thermal design, the thermal design power (TDP) of the APU is controlled around 65W, reducing power consumption by about 30% compared to traditional “CPU + discrete GPU” solutions.

MediaTek’s energy efficiency management technology accumulated in the mobile processor field (such as Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling) combined with NVIDIA’s DLSS 3.5 super-resolution technology can ensure high performance while extending battery life.

TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging technology is used to achieve high-density integration between chips.

TSMC plans to increase CoWoS monthly production capacity to 75,000-80,000 wafers by the end of 2025, with CoWoS-S and CoWoS-L exceeding 20,000 and 45,000 wafers respectively, providing capacity assurance for the mass production of APU.

This packaging technology not only avoids the signal delay issues of traditional multi-chip packaging but also supports future upgrades to HBM4 high-bandwidth memory (expected to be launched in 2026), with data transfer rates reaching 8.0Gbps+.

The strategic intent of this collaboration directly targets two major market opportunities.

First, the performance innovation of gaming laptops.

Currently, the gaming laptop market is dominated by the “discrete graphics card + CPU” mainstream configuration, but the heavy cooling modules and high power consumption limit portability.

The APU solution from NVIDIA and MediaTek, through integrated design, is expected to reduce the thickness of the body by 15%-20% while maintaining performance, meeting users’ demand for “lightweight gaming.”
According to IDC statistics, the global gaming laptop shipment is expected to grow by 9% year-on-year in 2024, with the Chinese market’s shipment expected to reach 9.2 million units by 2028, representing a compound annual growth rate of 4.2%, which provides ample space for high-performance APU.

Market news indicates that Dell’s Alienware new machine may adopt “liquid metal cooling” technology, achieving performance close to a 120W discrete graphics card under a 65W TDP.

Secondly, the computing power upgrade of AI PCs.

With the popularity of generative AI applications, user demand for local computing power has surged.

The integrated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in this APU can support tasks such as real-time voice recognition and image generation. The new machine in collaboration with Dell’s Alienware may come pre-installed with NVIDIA’s AI development toolkit, aiming to capture the enterprise-level AI PC market.

According to a Canalys report, global AI PC shipments are expected to exceed 103 million units by 2025, accounting for 40% of total PC shipments, making this field a new battleground for tech giants.

Of course, the collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek will also impact the existing market landscape.

Firstly, it will affect AMD’s market share. AMD’s Ryzen APU, with its “Zen CPU + RDNA GPU” combination, holds an advantage in the thin and light laptop market.

AMD’s latest Strix Halo APU integrated graphics performance is already close to RTX 3080, and it further optimizes energy efficiency through FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) technology.

Additionally, AMD’s collaboration with TSMC on 3nm process technology (such as the Instinct MI355X accelerator) may strengthen its position in the high-performance computing field.

Secondly, Intel will also be impacted by this collaboration. Currently, Intel is accelerating the advancement of “Intel 4” process and Arc graphics card technology, with its Meteor Lake processors achieving integration of CPU, GPU, and NPU through Foveros packaging.

At the same time, Intel’s AI PC ecosystem in collaboration with Microsoft (such as Windows Copilot) may compensate for hardware performance gaps through software optimization.

It is worth noting that Intel plans to use TSMC’s 3nm process for its Falcon Shores AI chip, which may directly target NVIDIA’s APU layout.

The collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek marks the entry of APU technology into the “high-performance era.”

Product forms may see technological innovations not seen in years. Thin and light gaming laptops may become mainstream, and traditional gaming laptop manufacturers will need to redesign cooling modules and industrial designs. Dell’s Alienware new machine may adopt “fanless” or “liquid metal cooling” technology, further reducing the size of the device.

Industry standards will also be restructured. The popularity of APU may promote the application of open standards such as UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express), facilitating interoperability of chips from different manufacturers
NVIDIA’s recently launched NVLink Fusion technology has provided a technical foundation for cross-vendor hardware collaboration.

With changes in product forms and industry standards, market competition will also intensify. AMD may accelerate the integration of the Zen 5 architecture with RDNA 4 GPUs, and Intel may increase its investment in Arc graphics cards. Will Qualcomm, Apple, and other manufacturers be eager to join the PC APU competition?

In any case, this technological race will ultimately benefit consumers, driving gaming laptops towards higher performance and lower power consumption.

The APU collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek is an important milestone in the semiconductor industry’s trend of “heterogeneous computing.” This technological breakthrough, market positioning, and impact on the industry chain are all worth close attention

Link