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AMD CTO explains why India is 'huge' for the company's engineering-dominated workforce

Advanced Micro Devices needs India to keep up with the growing demand for its products, its executive vice president and chief technology officer told CNBC in an exclusive interview.

“We have a global workforce. Our design efforts are global and doubling down on those investments, continuing our growth in India, are all part of what we need to stay pace with the growing demand for our products,” Mark Papermaster said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

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On Friday, AMD announced its plans to invest approximately $400 million to continue its growth in India. The investment will go toward building the firm’s largest design center, which is expected to open before the end of 2023, as well as the addition of about 3,000 engineering roles by the end of 2028.

“We started with a small number of employees in Delhi in 2001. Today, we have over 6,500 full-time employees, and over 3,500 service contractors. So it’s with a population of about 10,000 people. And we’re really pleased to be growing our investment in India — a huge part of our portfolio and product development,” said Papermaster.

AMD is one of the few firms that produces the high-end graphics processing units needed for artificial intelligence. AMD processors can be found in a wide range of devices including computers, servers and gaming consoles.

“We’re really excited about MI300, our next generation AI chip. It’s going to take on the most powerful AI chip in the industry. And it couldn’t come at a more needed time because the industry needs more AI computing power,” said Papermaster.

“And we have a design aspect of that being done in India. We now have the India design team touching almost every product that we develop in AMD,” said Papermaster.

Ruben Roy, managing director of equity research at financial services firm Stifel, said that AMD is the “only viable alternative” to Nvidia’s high-performance H100 and A100 GPUs.

AMD is the 'only viable alternative' to Nvidia's high-tech chips, financial services firm says

“They’re pushing very hard. R&D is going up. They are investing quite aggressively in AI,” Roy said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.

Papermaster told CNBC, “What we focus on is leveraging the latest cutting-edge semiconductor nodes. And we bring our design prowess to really differentiate our products.”

“That’s where India is so huge for us. Because if you look at our global population, about 25% of it is in India, and we are an engineering dominated workforce,” he said.

This week, the government of the state of Karnataka said that Taiwan’s Foxconn will invest more than $600 million in India as part of a phone manufacturing project as well as a separate semiconductor equipment facility.

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Firefly Aerospace sets IPO range that would value rocket maker at $5.5 billion

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Firefly Aerospace sets IPO range that would value rocket maker at .5 billion

Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim sits for an interview at the Firefly Aerospace mission operations center in Leander, Texas, on July 9, 2025.

Sergio Flores | Reuters

Firefly Aerospace will price shares at $35 to $39 each in its upcoming initial public offering, a deal that would value the rocket maker at about $5.5 billion.

The Texas-based space company said in an updated prospectus Monday that it’s planning to sell about 16.2 million shares. The offering could raise up to $631.8 million.

Earlier this month, Firefly filed its plans to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FLY.”

Its debut comes amid a renewed push in the space race, as billionaire-led companies such as Elon Musk‘s SpaceX funnel more money into space activities and startups try their luck at the public markets.

Space tech firm Voyager went public in June, while reusable rocket developer Innovative Rocket Technologies said it plans to debut through a $400 million special purpose acquisition company merger.

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Firefly’s public market launch also coincides with a revival in IPO activity as debilitating interest rates and an overhang from President Donald Trump‘s tariff plans begin to clear. Design software company Figma is slated to go public this week after raising its range.

Firefly makes rockets, space tugs and lunar landers, including satellite launching rockets known as Alpha. At the end of March, the company reported a sixfold jump in revenue from $8.3 million a year ago to $55.9 million.

The company also reported a net loss of about $60.1 million, up from a loss of $52.8 million a year ago, and said its backlog totaled about $1.1 billion.

Some of Firefly’s major backers include AE Industrial Partners, which led an early investing round in the company. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman invested $50 million in the startup this May, and Firefly says it has collaborated with Lockheed Martin, L3Harris and NASA.

WATCH: Firefly’s ambitious plan to become the next SpaceX

Firefly's ambitious plan to become the next SpaceX

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Figma raises IPO range to $30-$32 per share, in deal that could value company at nearly $19 billion

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Figma raises IPO range to - per share, in deal that could value company at nearly  billion

Elena Nadolinski, founder and CEO at Iron Fish, and Dylan Field, CEO and co-founder of Figma, attend the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 7, 2022.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

Design software maker Figma on Monday increased the expected price range for shares in its initial public offering this week.

The company now expects shares to go for $30 to 32 each, up from the range of $25 to $28 that it disclosed on July 21.

The new range, announced in a regulatory filing, suggests Figma would be worth $17.6 billion to $18.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.

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That would still be below the $20 billion total that Adobe had offered when it announced plans to acquire Figma in 2022. The deal fell apart after regulators pushed back on competitive grounds.

Figma is among the most valuable privately held technology companies.

Financial technology companies Chime and Circle went public in June, and CoreWeave shares debuted in March. Circle and CoreWeave shares have since more than doubled in price.

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Huawei reclaims No. 1 smartphone spot in China — and Apple returns to growth

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Huawei reclaims No. 1 smartphone spot in China — and Apple returns to growth

The Huawei flagship store and the Apple flagship store at Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai, China, Sept. 2, 2024.

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Huawei reclaimed the top spot in China’s smartphone market in the second quarter of the year, while Apple returned to growth in the country — one of its most critical markets — data released by technology market analyst firm Canalys showed on Monday.

Huawei shipped 12.2 million smartphones in China in the three months ended June, a rise of 15% year on year — equating to 18% market share. It’s the first time Huawei has been the biggest player by market share in China since the first quarter of 2024, according to Canalys.

Apple, meanwhile, shipped 10.1 million smartphones in the quarter in China, up 4% year on year and ranking fifth. It is the first time Apple has recorded growth in China since the fourth quarter of 2023, Canalys said.

Shipments represent the number of devices sent to retailers. They do no equate directly to sales but are a gauge of demand.

The numbers come ahead of Apple’s quarterly earnings release this week, with investors watching the company’s performance in China, a market where the Cupertino giant has faced significant challenges, including intense competition from Huawei and other local players such as Xiaomi.

Huawei, which made a comeback at the end of 2023 after its smartphone business was crippled by U.S. sanctions, has eaten away at Apple’s share.

Apple’s return to growth in China will be a welcome sign for investors. The U.S. tech giant “strategically adjusted its pricing” for the iPhone 16 series in China, which helped it grow, Canalys said. Chinese e-commerce firms discounted Apple’s iPhone 16 models during the quarter. And Apple itself also increased trade-in prices for some iPhone models.

Canalys’ numbers back up figures released by Counterpoint Research earlier this month showing Apple’s return to growth in China.

Shares of Apple have fallen around 14.5% this year, partly on concerns over China and geopolitical headwinds.

Key questions for Apple ahead of earnings

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Apple with tariffs and urged CEO Tim Cook to manufacture iPhones in America, a move experts have said would be near impossible.

Meanwhile, competition in China has intensified. Huawei has aggressively launched various smartphones in the past year and has started to roll out HarmonyOS 5, its self-developed operating system, across various devices. It is a rival to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.

“This move is expected to accelerate the expansion of its independent ecosystem’s user base, while also placing greater demands on system compatibility and user experience,” Lucas Zhong, analyst at Canalys, said in a press release.

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