AMD revolutionized the CPU market on September 23, 2003, with the launch of the Athlon 64, the first 64-bit x86 processor that maintained backward compatibility with 32-bit applications. This strategic move pressured Intel to abandon its Itanium architecture and adopt AMD's 64-bit design, leading to a significant shift in the competitive landscape of microprocessors. The Athlon 64's efficiency and performance ultimately enabled AMD to gain traction in both consumer and enterprise markets, challenging Intel's dominance.

A new attack named VMScape allows malicious virtual machines to leak cryptographic keys from unmodified QEMU hypervisors on modern AMD and Intel CPUs, breaking the isolation between VMs and the cloud hypervisor. The researchers from ETH Zurich demonstrated that this attack could target cloud providers without needing to compromise the host, posing a significant risk to multi-tenant cloud security, although it requires advanced technical skills to execute. AMD and Intel have been notified, and mitigations have been released to address the vulnerability.

Intel, AMD, and Arm have released security advisories to address newly disclosed CPU vulnerabilities, including significant issues related to branch privilege injection attacks. Intel's advisories include microcode updates to mitigate these vulnerabilities, while AMD reports its CPUs are not affected, and Arm has updated its security guidance to highlight potential risks.

NextSilicon, an Israeli startup, has announced its development of a new central processor aimed at competing with industry giants Intel and AMD. The company's flagship chip, "Maverick-2," is designed for precision scientific computing and is attracting attention as it seeks to capitalize on Nvidia's shift towards lower-precision computing tasks.