IT Week #1 — AI chips at full throttle, pricier components, and one trick for a faster PC

📰 News of the week: the AI chip race is revving up (and so are the price lists)

The big story comes out of Redmond: according to Bloomberg, Microsoft is in talks with TSMC to secure production of over 300,000 next-generation AI chips for delivery in 2027, ahead of the unveiling of its new Maia 300 accelerator expected this autumn. Translation: the race to build AI infrastructure isn't slowing down — it's shifting into a higher gear.

The thermometer confirms it: TSMC's sales grew 45% in July year over year, driven by demand for advanced chips, while South Korea announces multi-billion investments in its own semiconductor supply chain.

And here's the part that affects everyone: this hunger for silicon has a very tangible side effect. Memory and components are starting to cost more on the consumer market too, because global production capacity is being soaked up by AI data centers. If you were planning to refresh your fleet of machines, the price of "brand new" over the coming months is unlikely to do you any favors.

♻️ Refurbished world: when new gets pricier, refurbished says thank you

The thread connecting this to the news above is direct: when new components cost more, refurbished hardware becomes the rational choice, not the fallback. And the industry numbers back it up: leading market analyses put the global value of refurbished electronics at around $75 billion in 2025, with double-digit growth expected every year for the next decade.

There's the environmental side of the coin too: the world generates over 50 million tonnes of e-waste every year, and the heaviest share of a device's CO₂ footprint is created in the factory, not during use. Every laptop that goes back into service is manufacturing avoided: that's the math of the circular economy — the same math we've been doing in our labs since 2006.

The signal for businesses is clear: more and more procurement specs and sustainability reports reward those who choose refurbished IT. Savings and ESG, for once, pulling in the same direction.

🪟 The Windows tip: PC slow to boot? Two minutes and you can breathe

Let's close with a classic we fix every single week in the lab: the PC that takes forever to start up. Nine times out of ten the culprit isn't the hardware — it's the programs that invite themselves to the startup party.

The cure, on Windows 10 and 11: press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, go to the Startup apps tab and check the "Startup impact" column. Anything marked "High" that you don't need the moment your PC turns on (game launchers, assorted updaters, printer apps you never use), right-click → Disable. You're not uninstalling anything: the programs stay right where they are — they just stop launching on their own.

Bonus for the tinkerers: Win + V turns on clipboard history — copy ten things, paste them all, no back-and-forth. Once you try it, there's no going back.

See you next week! 🚀