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Tag: Semiconductor manufacturing

  • India joins US-led initiative to build secure technology supply chains

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    NEW DELHI — India joined a U.S.-led initiative to strengthen technology cooperation among strategic allies in a move Friday that underscores the nations’ warming ties after a brief strain over New Delhi’s unabated purchase of discounted Russian oil.

    The decision aligns India closely with Washington’s efforts to build secure supply chains for semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and critical technologies at a time geopolitical competition with China is intensifying. It also signals a reset in relations following friction over energy trade and tariffs.

    Nations that have joined the Pax Silica framework include Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and Israel.

    “Pax Silica will be a group of nations that believe technology should empower free people and free markets. India’s entry into Pax Silica isn’t just symbolic. Its strategic, its essential,” U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor said in a speech preceding the agreement signing.

    Pax Silica is aimed at strengthening cooperation among partner countries on semiconductor design, fabrication, research and supply chain resilience. The initiative seeks to reduce dependence on China-dominated manufacturing hubs while promoting trusted production networks across democracies and strategic allies.

    The development at the artificial intelligence summit in New Delhi comes weeks after India and the U.S. reached an interim trade framework to reduce tariffs and grant greater access to each other’s markets, easing tensions that had threatened to slow bilateral momentum.

    President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that the U.S. would lower reciprocal import tariffs on India from 25% to 18% and also remove the additional 25% levy imposed earlier for buying Russian crude after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop it.

    India had ramped up Russian oil imports after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drawing criticism from western partners even as New Delhi defended the purchases as necessary to manage inflation and protect its consumers.

    India’s entry into Pax Silica, combined with trade concessions, marks a strategic convergence that extends beyond commerce into long-term technology and security cooperation, reinforcing India’s role as a key U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific.

    “From the trade deal to Pax Silica to defense cooperation, the potential for our two nations to work together is truly limitless,” Gor said.

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  • Trump administration reaches a trade deal to lower Taiwan’s tariff barriers

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    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration reached a trade deal with Taiwan on Thursday, with Taiwan agreeing to remove or reduce 99% of its tariff barriers, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.

    The agreement comes as the U.S. remains reliant on Taiwan for its production of computer chips, the exporting of which contributed to a trade imbalance of nearly $127 billion during the first 11 months of 2025, according to the Census Bureau.

    Most of Taiwan’s exports to the U.S. will be taxed at a 15% rate, the USTR’s office said. The 15% rate is the same as that levied on other U.S. trading partners in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Japan and South Korea.

    Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attended the signing of the reciprocal agreement, which occurred under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. Taiwan’s Vice Premier Li-chiun Cheng and its government minister Jen-ni Yang also attended the signing.

    “President Trump’s leadership in the Asia-Pacific region continues to generate prosperous trade ties for the United States with important partners across Asia, while further advancing the economic and national security interests of the American people,” Greer said in a statement.

    The Taiwanese government said in a statement that the tariff rate set in the agreement allows its companies to compete on a level field with Japan, South Korea and the European Union. It also said the agreement “eliminated” the disadvantage from a lack of a free trade agreement between Taiwan and the U.S.

    The deal comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to China in April and suggests a deepening economic relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan.

    Taiwan is a self-ruled democracy that China claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. Beijing prohibits all countries it has diplomatic relations with — including the U.S. — from having formal ties with Taipei.

    Under the deal, Taiwan will make investments of $250 billion in U.S. industries, such as computer chips, artificial intelligence applications and energy. The Taiwanese government says it will provide up to an additional $250 billion in credit guarantees to help smaller businesses invest in the U.S.

    The agreement would make it easier for the U.S. to sell autos, pharmaceutical drugs and food products in Taiwan. But the critical component might be that Taiwanese companies would invest in the production of computer chips in the U.S., possibly helping to ease the trade imbalance.

    The investments helped enable the U.S. to reduce its planned tariffs from as much as 32% initially to 15%.

    Taiwan’s government said it will submit the deal and investment plans to its legislature for approval.

    The U.S. side said the deal with Taiwan would help create several “world-class” industrial parks in America in order to help build up domestic manufacturing of advanced technologies such as chips. The Commerce Department in January described it as “a historic trade deal that will drive a massive reshoring of America’s semiconductor sector.”

    In return, the U.S. would give preferential treatment to Taiwan regarding the possible tariffs stemming from a Section 232 investigation of the importing of computer chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

    TSMC, the chip-making giant, is expected to be the key investor. It has committed to $165 billion in investments in the U.S., including not only fabrication plants but also a major research and development center that would help build a supply chain to power U.S. artificial intelligence ambitions. Major U.S. tech companies such as Nvidia and AMD rely on TSMC for manufacturing highly advanced chips.

    Taiwan also said the investments will be two-way, with U.S. companies also investing in key Taiwanese industries. Nvidia this week signed a land deal in Taipei to build a headquarters office there.

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  • Taiwan’s AI-powered economy soars in the shadow of bubble fears and China threats

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — In Taipei, real estate agent Jason Sung is betting that home prices around a high-tech industrial park in the northern part of Taiwan’s capital will soon take flight – because of computer chip maker Nvidia.

    The area is where Nvidia plans to build its new Taiwan headquarters as it rapidly expands on the island, set to surpass Apple to become the biggest customer of Taiwan semiconductor maker TSMC, the biggest contract manufacturer of the advanced chips needed for artificial intelligence.

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang describes Taiwan as the “center of the world’s computer ecosystem.” It’s riding high on the global AI frenzy. Its economy grew at an 8.6% annual pace last year, and it’s hoping to maintain that momentum after it recently sealed a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump that cut U.S. tariffs on Taiwan to 15% from 20%.

    “We have been lucky,” said Wu Tsong-min, an emeritus economics professor at National Taiwan University and a former board member of Taiwan’s central bank.

    But Taiwan’s heavy reliance on computer chip makers and other technology companies carries the growing risk of the AI craze turning out to be a bubble.

    “What if the AI bubble is real, and what if its rapid growth pace slows, what’s next for Taiwan? That’s the question many have been asking,” Wu said.

    Escalating tensions with Beijing, which claims independently governed Taiwan as mainland China’s territory, are another abiding threat, despite the island’s vital role in global chip and AI supply chains.

    An island of about 23 million people, Taiwan depends heavily on exports. They jumped nearly 35% year-on-year in 2025, as shipments to the U.S. surged 78% due to ballooning AI demand.

    That’s thanks largely to TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., and electronics giant Foxconn, which makes AI servers for Nvidia and is a major supplier to Apple.

    Taiwan has undergone massive economic changes while shifting from mainly labor-intensive industries such as plastics and textiles to advanced manufacturing like semiconductor fabrication.

    The AI frenzy has made TSMC one of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies. Its profit jumped 46% last year to $1.7 trillion Taiwan dollars ($54 billion).

    The chipmaker is investing heavily both in Taiwan and in new factories in Arizona in the U.S. It produces more than 90% of the world’s most advanced chips.

    Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has doubled its value since 2023. The maker of Apple’s iPhone and iPads now produces AI servers and racks and has a partnership with OpenAI to supply AI data center equipment.

    Taiwan’s heavy reliance on its technology industry means its biggest risk is that growth will be “very highly contingent on the AI boom and tech race continuing,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank.

    Worries that the AI craze may prove to be a bubble prone to a bust similar to the dot.com crash in 2000 that swept through markets, alarming many in Taiwan.

    “I’m also very nervous about it,” C.C. Wei, TSMC’s chairman said when asked about a potential AI bubble during an earnings call in January. “Because we have to invest about $52-$56 billion (this year).”

    “If we did not do it carefully, that will be a big disaster to TSMC for sure,” he said. “I want to make sure that my customers’ demands are real.”

    In a recent report, analysts from Fitch Ratings argued that AI demand will remain strong at least in the near term. In the longer term, however, the risks “will depend on the evolution of AI, as well as trade and investment policies and the adaptability of Taiwanese firms,” they wrote.

    Taiwanese electronics company Asia Vital Components, a key supplier of liquid cooling systems for Nvidia, is investing heavily in research and development. Its chairman, Spencer Shen, said he saw no signs of a slowdown in AI-related demand so far. The company is already designing thermal solutions for 2028 AI servers, he said.

    “We do not believe this is a bubble,” Shen told The Associated Press in an interview. “AI is driven by companies with real products and massive cash flows, like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta.”

    “In fact, AI infrastructure is still in short supply,” Shen added. “I expect AI to trickle through to our everyday level and change the way that things will work fundamentally.”

    Some in Taiwan believe that its pivotal role in the technology sector, especially as a maker of computer chips whose main material is silicon, helps to protect the island from attack by communist-ruled Beijing, whose leaders have vowed to reunite the island with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary.

    The two governments split in 1949 during a civil war. Beijing has been stepping up pressure, conducting military drills nearby. Exercises in late December included live rounds landing closer to the island than before, Taiwan officials said.

    Such geopolitical factors cloud the economic outlook, though many in Taiwan including its former President Tsai Ing-wen believe its importance to global chipmaking would deter China from attacking.

    The risk of an invasion is unclear. Both global tech companies and Chinese industries would suffer from massive disruptions of the chip supply chain, said Wu of National Taiwan University.

    Still, some companies have been identifying contingency scenarios in recent years on how to respond in case of military action by China, said Chen Shin-horng, vice president of the semi-official Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research.

    “We need to understand the potential risk, potential damages to Taiwan,” said Chen.

    While many of its core research and development activities are in Taiwan, TSMC already has plants in China, Japan and the U.S., and it’s expanding its offshore production in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

    Roughly 65% of Foxconn’s manufacturing is in China, and the company has factories in other parts of the world such as India, Mexico and the U.S. AVC has been expanding its production capacity in Vietnam.

    While some have called for Taiwan to diversify its economy away from technology to reduce risks, others argue that doubling down on its world-leading technology is the way forward. “It is our greatest strength,” said Shen of AVC.

    The AI boom has done wonders for Taiwan’s stock exchange, where the benchmark Taiex has climbed nearly 250% over the past decade, making many investors rich. Economists have significantly upgraded forecasts for Taiwan’s economic growth for 2026 based on its robust AI-related exports.

    But as is true elsewhere, the wealth is not evenly spread. Many Taiwan residents feel they have been left behind.

    Taiwan’s wealth gap, according to official data, has roughly quadrupled over the past three decades.

    The pay of tech workers already earning high wages, especially chip engineers and managers, has skyrocketed. For other traditional industries, such as plastics and machine toolmakers, growth has lagged.

    Economists say that gap might widen as the AI frenzy continues.

    “It can be tough to make a living,” said Jean Lin, a 30-something manager of a takeaway outlet selling bento meals in a Taipei neighborhood where Foxconn’s office is located.

    “Many of the younger generation still can’t afford to buy an apartment,” Lin, who wishes to start her own business one day, added. “A lot of young people still feel they don’t have much money.”

    ___

    Associated Press video journalist Johnson Lai contributed.

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  • Dutch court orders investigation into semiconductor chipmaker Nexperia

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    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered a formal investigation into Dutch-based semiconductor chipmaker Nexperia and upheld an earlier order suspending its Chinese CEO, citing doubts about the company’s policies and conduct.

    The written decision by the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal is the latest step in a saga swirling around Nexperia that sent shock waves through the world’s auto manufacturers, who use the company’s chips in their cars.

    The dispute made global headlines in October, when the Dutch government said it had effectively seized control of the company since late September based on national security concerns.

    Nexperia’s Chinese CEO Zhang Xuezheng, who’s also founder of Nexperia owner Wingtech, was suspended by the enterprise chamber in October following claims of mismanagement.

    At a court hearing last month, lawyers for Zhang and Wingtech painted him as a successful businessman trying to guide Nexperia through troubled geopolitical waters. They urged the court not to order an investigation and said Wingtech had been blindsided by the Dutch government move. Zhang was not in court for the hearing.

    However, Nexperia lawyer Jeroen van der Schriek told the three-judge panel that the behavior of Wingtech and Hong Kong-based holding company Yuching since October “makes it clear that they are willing to subordinate Nexperia’s interests to other interests.”

    An English statement issued by the court on Wednesday’s ruling said that chamber found that “a conflict of interest has been handled without due care” at Nexperia.

    It added that there are “indications that the director of Nexperia changed the strategy without internal consultation under the threat of upcoming sanctions.” It said that agreements with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs “were no longer adhered to, the powers of European managers were restricted and their dismissal was announced.”

    The court statement said that it could not definitively say how long the investigation would take, but added that such probes can take more than six months. The court will use the findings to assess “whether there has been mismanagement at Nexperia and whether definitive measures need to be taken.”

    Nexperia did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

    The dispute at Nexperia escalated when China temporarily blocked the export of Nexperia chips from its plant in China in October, sending global auto manufacturers scrambling to secure supplies and alternatives. Beijing’s export ban was later lifted, after U.S. President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in late October. And the Dutch government in November said it was relinquishing its control of Nexperia as a “show of goodwill.”

    But a standoff between Nexperia’s headquarters in the Netherlands and its Chinese unit continued to fuel chip supply chain concerns. Nexperia’s Chinese arm had said its Dutch headquarters interrupted shipments of wafers to its Chinese factory, which it said had impacted its core production operations and weighed on its ability in delivering finished products. Nexperia’s headquarters hit back, and said the Chinese unit had ignored instructions from the head office.

    “Nexperia’s situation now requires, first and foremost, a situation of calm that allows Nexperia to restore its internal relations, its production chain and deliveries to customers,” the court said Wednesday.

    Car manufacturers including Honda had to halt production of some cars as the Nexperia crisis unfolded, and Mercedes-Benz was among those scrambling to find alternatives.

    Nexperia was spun off from Philips Semiconductors two decades ago and then purchased in 2018 by Wingtech. In 2023, the British government blocked Nexperia’s bid to acquire Wales-based chipmaker Newport Wafer Fab, citing national security risks.

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  • TSMC to make advanced AI semiconductors in Japan in boost for its chipmaking ambitions

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    TOKYO — Taiwan’s chipmaker TSMC said Thursday it will be manufacturing some of the world’s most cutting-edge semiconductors in Japan to meet booming artificial intelligence-related demand, in a boost for the country’s chipmaking ambitions.

    Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a major chip supplier to companies such as Nvidia and Apple, said Thursday it plans to make 3-nanometer semiconductors — advanced chips that are used in areas such as AI products and smartphones — at its second factory in Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture, which is under construction.

    The decision by TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, was a coup for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ahead of a general election on Sunday, where she hopes to secure the public’s mandate for her policies riding on high approval ratings.

    The announcement came while Takaichi was meeting with TSMC’s CEO and Chairman, C.C. Wei, in Tokyo.

    “It is very meaningful from the perspective of Japanese economic security, and I would like the project to move forward as proposed, by all means,” Takaichi said during the meeting.

    The advanced chips set to be made in Kumamoto will be used in AI, robotics and autonomous driving, sectors that Takaishi’s cabinet has designated as strategically important fields.

    TSMC’s first Kumamoto plant started mass production in late 2024 and makes less advanced chips. The company also is building new plants in Arizona in the U.S. to create a fabrication plant cluster and meet growing demand from customers building on the global AI frenzy.

    TSMC said in a separate emailed statement that Wei believes Japan’s “forward-looking semiconductor policy will deliver significant benefits to the semiconductor industry.”

    As Japan looks to gain ground in global advanced chipmaking competitiveness, it is also providing huge subsidies for its domestic chipmaker Rapidus, which is advancing towards mass producing cutting-edge chips.

    “There is a huge significance to have the world’s most advanced semiconductor factory in Japan from the perspective of economic security,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a message posted on X on Thursday.

    Despite growing concerns over a potential AI-related bubble where massive investments may not pay off, TSMC’s Wei said last month he was confident the growing AI demand from its customers is “real.”

    Last month, TSMC said it plans to increase capital spending by up to nearly 40% this year as AI-related demand lifted its profits. It plans to raise its capital spending for 2026 to $52 billion-$56 billion, up from last year’s $40 billion.

    ___

    Chan reported from Hong Kong.

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  • Musk vows to put data centers in space, run them on solar power

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    NEW YORK — Elon Musk vowed this week to upend another industry just as he did with cars and rockets — and once again he’s taking on long odds.

    The world’s richest man said he wants to put as many as a million satellites into orbit to form vast, solar-powered data centers in space — a move to allow expanded use of artificial intelligence and chatbots without triggering blackouts and sending utility bills soaring.

    To finance that effort, Musk combined SpaceX with his AI business on Monday and plans a big initial public offering of the combined company.

    “Space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” Musk wrote on SpaceX’s website Monday, adding about his solar ambitions, “It’s always sunny in space!”

    But scientists and industry experts say even Musk — who outsmarted Detroit to turn Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker — faces formidable technical, financial and environmental obstacles.

    Here’s a look:

    Capturing the sun’s energy from space to run chatbots and other AI tools would ease pressure on power grids and cut demand for sprawling computing warehouses that are consuming farms and forests and vast amounts of water to cool.

    But space presents its own set of problems.

    Data centers generate enormous heat. Space seems to offer a solution because it is cold. But it is also a vacuum, trapping heat inside objects in the same way that a Thermos keeps coffee hot using double walls with no air between them.

    “An uncooled computer chip in space would overheat and melt much faster than one on Earth,” said Josep Jornet, a computer and electrical engineering professor at Northeastern University.

    One fix is to build giant radiator panels that glow in infrared light to push the heat “out into the dark void,” says Jornet, noting that the technology has worked on a small scale, including on the International Space Station. But for Musk’s data centers, he says, it would require an array of “massive, fragile structures that have never been built before.”

    Then there is space junk.

    A single malfunctioning satellite breaking down or losing orbit could trigger a cascade of collisions, potentially disrupting emergency communications, weather forecasting and other services.

    Musk noted in a recent regulatory filing that he has had only one “low-velocity debris generating event” in seven years running Starlink, his satellite communications network. Starlink has operated about 10,000 satellites — but that’s a fraction of the million or so he now plans to put in space.

    “We could reach a tipping point where the chance of collision is going to be too great,” said University at Buffalo’s John Crassidis, a former NASA engineer. “And these objects are going fast — 17,500 miles per hour. There could be very violent collisions.”

    Even without collisions, satellites fail, chips degrade, parts break.

    Special GPU graphics chips used by AI companies, for instance, can become damaged and need to be replaced.

    “On Earth, what you would do is send someone down to the data center,” said Baiju Bhatt, CEO of Aetherflux, a space-based solar energy company. “You replace the server, you replace the GPU, you’d do some surgery on that thing and you’d slide it back in.”

    But no such repair crew exists in orbit, and those GPUs in space could get damaged due to their exposure to high-energy particles from the sun.

    Bhatt says one workaround is to overprovision the satellite with extra chips to replace the ones that fail. But that’s an expensive proposition given they are likely to cost tens of thousands of dollars each, and current Starlink satellites only have a lifespan of about five years.

    Musk is not alone trying to solve these problems.

    A company in Redmond, Washington, called Starcloud, launched a satellite in November carrying a single Nvidia-made AI computer chip to test out how it would fare in space. Google is exploring orbital data centers in a venture it calls Project Suncatcher. And Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announced plans in January for a constellation of more than 5,000 satellites to start launching late next year, though its focus has been more on communications than AI.

    Still, Musk has an edge: He’s got rockets.

    Starcloud had to use one of his Falcon rockets to put its chip in space last year. Aetherflux plans to send a set of chips it calls a Galactic Brain to space on a SpaceX rocket later this year. And Google may also need to turn to Musk to get its first two planned prototype satellites off the ground by early next year.

    Pierre Lionnet, a research director at the trade association Eurospace, says Musk routinely charges rivals far more than he charges himself —- as much as $20,000 per kilo of payload versus $2,000 internally.

    He said Musk’s announcements this week signal that he plans to use that advantage to win this new space race.

    “When he says we are going to put these data centers in space, it’s a way of telling the others we will keep these low launch costs for myself,” said Lionnet. “It’s a kind of powerplay.”

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  • Taiwan’s economy grows at fastest rate in 15 years, turbocharged by the AI boom

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s economy expanded at an 8.6% annual rate last year, the fastest pace in 15 years, as its export-focused industries were buoyed by the frenzy over artificial intelligence and a surge of shipments to the U.S..

    The advanced estimate released by Taiwan’s statistics agency on Friday was much better than economists had forecast. It was the strongest growth rate since 2010.

    Taiwan set a trade deal earlier this month with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. It lowered U.S. tariffs on imports from the island to 15% from 20% in exchange for pledges of at least $250 billion of investment in the U.S. in areas such as semiconductors and AI. That could power higher exports, further charging the economy this year, economists say.

    “We expect AI-related demand to continue underpinning Taiwan’s export performance into 2026, supporting overall economic growth amid sustained global AI investment,” Bank of America economists Xiaoqing Pi and Helen Qiao wrote in a recent note.

    Taiwan is a major manufacturer of AI servers, computer chips and precision instruments. Its exports jumped nearly 35% last year from a year earlier, led by technology-related shipments. Shipments to the U.S. surged 78%.

    The AI boom has also propelled Taiwan’s leading technology companies to record profits and revenues. Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia as its key client and is one of the largest companies in the world by market value — and electronics giant Foxconn, which makes AI servers for Nvidia and assembles products for Apple.

    However, growth this year will likely slow since it’s building on a high base, economists say.

    Deutsche Bank estimates Taiwan’s economy will grow 4.8% in 2026. Growing concerns that the AI boom may be a bubble are a key risk given Taiwan’s dependence on tech exports.

    Uncertainty over U.S. tariffs under Trump are another worry. So are tensions with Beijing. China claims Taiwan, a self-ruled island, as its own territory. China conducted large-scale military drills around Taiwan in late December, renewing concerns over a possible blockade or seizure by Beijing.

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  • Pakistani consortium acquires 75% stake in PIA in major privatization move

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    ISLAMABAD — A consortium led by a Pakistani investment firm acquired a 75% stake in state-run Pakistan International Airlines on Tuesday during a televised auction, marking a major step in the government’s long-delayed effort to privatize the loss-making national carrier.

    The Arif Habib consortium submitted a winning bid of 135 billion rupees ($482 million) for the majority shareholding in PIA, which was once regarded as among the region’s top airlines but has suffered decades of financial losses and mismanagement.

    Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, speaking at the bidding ceremony, said the privatization process was transparent and competitive. He hoped that the new owners would help revive the airline.

    The sale fulfills a long-standing demand by the International Monetary Fund, which has repeatedly urged Pakistan to privatize the airline as part of broader economic reforms tied to bailout programs.

    The auction comes two months after PIA resumed direct flights to Europe following a decision by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency to lift a four-year ban imposed over safety concerns. The ban was introduced in 2020, after 97 people were killed when a PIA aircraft crashed in Karachi.

    Once seen as a model airline, PIA has deteriorated over the years due to political interference and chronic overstaffing. The airline employs about 300 workers per aircraft across its 32 fleet — one of the highest employee-to-aircraft ratios in the industry. Most airlines operate with fewer than 200 employees per aircraft, a common benchmark of productivity.

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  • World shares are mixed and Japan’s yen slips after AI stocks push higher on Wall Street

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    World shares were mixed on Monday after a rebound in AI-related stocks like Nvidia spurred a late-in-the-week rally on Wall Street.

    Germany’s DAX edged 0.1% higher to 24,315.90, while the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.2% to 8,135.23. Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.3% to 9,864.71.

    The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.4% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%.

    In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 gained 1.8% to 50,402.39, helped by hefty gains for computer chip makers and other companies benefiting from the boom for artificial intelligence.

    Semiconductor maker Tokyo Electron jumped 6.3% while chip testing equipment maker Advantest gained 4.5%.

    Financial companies and exporters also saw gains after the Bank of Japan raised its key policy rate on Friday to its highest level in 30 years. Instead of causing the Japanese yen to strengthen as might be expected, it has fallen.

    Early Monday, the dollar bought 157.45 yen, down from 157.60 late Friday. Heavy selling of the yen for dollars caused a top Finance Ministry official in charge of foreign exchange issues, Atsushi Mimura, to warn that regulators would act to curb any excessive fluctuations in the currency.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng picked up 0.4% to 25,901.77. The Shanghai Composite index advanced 0.7% to 3,917.36.

    China’s central bank left its 1-year and 5-year loan prime rates unchanged, as expected.

    Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi added 2.1% to 4,105.93 and Taiwan’s Taiex was 1.6% higher, helped by a 2.5% gain for chip maker TSMC.

    In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.9% to 8,699.90.

    “Asian equity markets are stepping onto the floor with a constructive bias, taking their cue from Friday’s solid rebound in U.S. stocks and the growing belief that the final stretch of the year still belongs to the bulls,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 0.9%, edging 0.1% higher for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, while the Nasdaq composite index advanced 1.3%, nothing a 0.5% gain for the week.

    Nvidia was the biggest force driving the market higher, with a 3.9% gain. Broadcom jumped 3.2%.

    The technology sector has been fueling Wall Street throughout the year as companies with outsized values like Nvidia exert more pressure on markets. But, those pricey stock values have come under more scrutiny from investors wondering whether they are justifiable.

    Oracle rose 6.6% on news that it, along with two other investors, had signed agreements to form a new TikTok U.S. joint ventur e. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each get a 15% share in the popular social video platform, ensuring that it can continue operating in the U.S.

    Homebuilders fell following a report showing that home sales slowed from a year earlier for the first time since May. KB Home fell 8.5%.

    A survey from the University of Michigan showed that consumer sentiment in December improved slightly from November, but is deeply diminished from a year earlier.

    Consumer confidence has been weakening throughout the year as persistent inflation squeezes consumers. The job market is also slowing while retail sales weaken. Businesses and consumers are also worrying about the continued impact of a wide-ranging U.S.-led trade war that has targeted key partners including China and Canada.

    Inflation is still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate at its most recent meeting. It has been concerned about the slowing job market hurting the economy. But cutting interest rates could add more fuel to inflation, which could also stunt economic growth.

    The Fed has maintained a cautious stance about interest rate policy heading into 2026 and Wall Street is mostly betting that it will hold steady on rates at its next meeting in January.

    In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 57 cents to $57.09 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 58 cents at $61.05 per barrel.

    The euro climbed to $1.1726 from $1.1720.

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  • Nvidia’s earnings attest to its leadership in the AI race. By the numbers

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    Nvidia reported more eye-catching numbers for its fiscal third quarter Wednesday, with net income jumping 65% and revenue increasing 62% from a year earlier.

    Last month, Nvidia became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion.

    The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.

    Nvidia carved out an early lead in tailoring its chipsets known as graphics processing units, or GPUs, from use in powering video games to helping to train powerful AI systems, like the technology behind ChatGPT and image generators. Demand skyrocketed as more people began using AI chatbots. Tech companies scrambled for more chips to build and run them.

    Nvidia’s journey to be one of the world’s most prominent companies has produced some extraordinary numbers. Here’s a look.

    $31.9 billion

    Nvidia’s net income for the third quarter, up from $19.3 billion a year ago.

    38.9%

    Nvidia stock’s gain for the year, as of the close of trading Wednesday. That follows gains of 171% in 2024 and 239% in 2023.

    $4.53 trillion

    Nvidia’s total market capitalization as of the close of trading Wednesday, tops in the S&P 500.

    Apple at $3.98 trillion and Microsoft at $3.62 trillion were next among the most valuable companies in the S&P 500. In all, nine companies in the index have market cap’s above $1 trillion.

    $4.28 trillion

    The gross domestic product of Japan, the world’s fourth largest economy, according to the International Monetary Fund.

    79

    The number of trading days it took for Nvidia’s market cap to grow from $4 trillion to $5 trillion earlier this year. The market cap had jumped from $3 trillion on May 13, to $4 trillion on July 9 (41 trading days), although Nvidia had crossed and fallen back below the $3 trillion threshold a number of times between June 2024 and May 2025 before making the run to $4 trillion.

    19.8%

    The company’s contribution to the gain in the S&:P 500 this year as of Oct. 31, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

    $162 billion

    The net worth of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to Forbes, putting him eighth on its Real-Time Billionaires List. Elon Musk is No. 1 at $467.7 billion.

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  • Microsoft partners with Anthropic and Nvidia in cloud infrastructure deal

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    Microsoft said Tuesday it is partnering with artificial intelligence company Anthropic and chipmaker Nvidia as part of an AI infrastructure deal that moves the software giant further away from its longtime alliance with OpenAI.

    Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, said it is committed to buying $30 billion in computing capacity from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

    As part of the partnership, Nvidia will also invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic, and Microsoft will invest up to $5 billion in the San Francisco-based startup.

    The joint announcements by CEOs Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and Jensen Huang of Nvidia came just ahead of the opening of Microsoft’s annual Ignite developer conference.

    “This is all about deepening our commitment to bringing the best infrastructure, model choice and applications to our customers,” Nadella said on a video call with the other two executives, adding that it builds on the “critical” partnership Microsoft still has with OpenAI.

    Microsoft was, until earlier this year, the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI and made the technology behind ChatGPT the foundation for its own AI assistant, Copilot. But the two companies moved farther apart and their business agreements were amended as OpenAI increasingly sought to secure its own cloud capacity through big deals with Oracle, SoftBank and other data center developers and chipmakers.

    Asked in September if OpenAI could do more with those new computing partnerships than it could with Microsoft, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told The Associated Press his company was “severely limited for the value we can offer to people.”

    At the same time, Microsoft holds a roughly 27% stake in the new for-profit corporation that OpenAI, founded as a nonprofit, is forming to advance its commercial ambitions as the world’s most valuable startup.

    Anthropic, founded by ex-OpenAI leaders in 2021, said Claude will now be the “only frontier model” available to customers of the three biggest cloud computing providers: Amazon, which remains Anthropic’s primary cloud provider, and Google and Microsoft.

    AI products like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilotand Google’s Gemini are reshaping how many people work but take huge amounts of energy and computing power to build and operate. Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic has yet reported turning a profit, amplifying concerns about an AI bubble if their products don’t meet investors’ high expectations and justify the expenditures. As part of the deal, Nvidia said Anthropic will have access to up to a gigawatt of capacity from its specialized AI chips.

    Huang said he’s “admired the work of Anthropic and Dario for a long time, and this is the first time we are going to deeply partner with Anthropic to accelerate Claude.”

    At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, a showcase of its latest AI technology which opened Tuesday in San Francisco, Anthropic’s chief product officer Mike Krieger highlighted the budding partnership during an on-stage appearance.

    “From the beginning, it has seemed there has been a lot of shared DNA between our companies,” said Krieger, who was also the co-founder of Instagram.

    ——

    AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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  • Asian shares sink, tracking a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street

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    BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares tumbled on Tuesday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul sinking more than 3%, after Nvidia and other artificial-intelligence -related shares pulled U.S. stocks lower.

    U.S. futures dropped, with the contract for the S&P 500 down 0.6% while the future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.4%.

    Computer chip giant Nvidia, at the center of the craze over AI, is due to report its earnings on Wednesday. Worries that stock prices of such companies have shot too high have roiled world markets recently, with big swings in places that rely heavily on trade in computer chips such as South Korea and Taiwan.

    Also hanging over the markets is the release due Thursday of U.S. employment data that was delayed by the prolonged government shutdown.

    Regional markets felt a chill after the yield on 30-year Japanese government bonds surged to 3.31%, reflecting rising risks as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prepares to boost government spending and push back the timetable for bringing down Japan’s huge national debt.

    The yen was trading above 155 to the U.S. dollar, near its highest level since February. On Monday, the yen fell to its lowest level against the euro since 1999, when the unified European currency was launched.

    Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down 3% at 48,835.20 by midday, with selling of tech shares leading the decline. Chip maker Tokyo Electron shed 5.4%, while equipment maker Advantest dropped 4.6%.

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    In Seoul, the Kospi fell 3.1% to 3,960.82. Samsung Electronics dropped 2.9%, while chip maker SK Hynix shed 5.7%.

    In Taiwan, the Taiex fell 2.3% as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, declined 2.4%.

    Chinese markets were not immune from heavy selling.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.5% to 25,997.20, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 0.6% to 3,949.83.

    In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gave up 2.1% to 8,452.50.

    On Monday, the S&P 500 fell 0.9% to 6,672.41, pulling further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow industrials dropped 1.2% to 46,590.24, while the Nasdaq composite sank 0.8% to 22,708.07.

    Nvidia dropped 1.8%, though it is still up nearly 40% this year. Losses for other AI winners included a 6.4% slide for Super Micro Computer.

    Other areas of the market that had been high-momentum winners also sank. Bitcoin extended its decline, dragging down Coinbase Global by 7.1% and Robinhood Markets by 5.3%. Early Tuesday, it was down 2% at $90,110.

    Critics have been warning that the U.S. stock market could be primed for a drop because of how high prices have shot since April, leaving them looking too expensive.

    However, Alphabet gained 3.1% after Berkshire Hathaway said it has built a $4.34 billion ownership stake in Google’s parent company. Berkshire Hathaway, run by famed investor Warren Buffett, is notorious for trying to buy stocks only when they look like good values while avoiding anything that looks too expensive.

    Another source of potential disappointment for Wall Street is what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates. The expectation had been that the Fed would keep cutting interest rates in hopes of shoring up the slowing job market.

    But the downside of lower interest rates is that they can make inflation worse, and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target.

    Fed officials have also pointed to the U.S. government’s shutdown, which delayed the release of updates on the job market and other signals about the economy. With less information and less certainty about how things are going, some Fed officials have suggested it may be better to wait in December to get more clarity.

    A strong jobs report on Thursday would likely stay the Fed’s hand on rate cuts, while figures that are very weak would raise worries about the economy.

    In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 42 cents to $59.49 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 43 cents to $63.77 per barrel.

    The dollar fell to 155.08 Japanese yen from 155.26 yen. The euro rose to $1.1600 from $1.1593.

    ___

    AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.

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  • US has warned others to avoid loans from Chinese state banks. But it’s the biggest recipient of all

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, Washington has been warning others not to trust loans from Chinese state banks fueling its rise as a superpower. But a new report reveals an ironic twist: The United States is the biggest recipient of all — by far. And the security and technology implications have yet to be fully understood.

    China’s state lenders have funneled $200 billion into U.S. businesses for a quarter of a century, but many of the loans have been kept secret because the money was first routed through shell companies in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Delaware and elsewhere that helped obscure their origins, according to AidData, a research lab at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.

    More alarming, much of the lending was to help Chinese companies buy stakes in U.S. businesses, many tied to critical technology and national security, including a robotics maker, a semiconductor company and a biotech firm.

    The report found a far more widespread and sophisticated lending network than previously thought — a web of financial obligations extending beyond developing countries to rich ones, including the U.K., Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and other U.S. allies.

    “China was playing chess while the rest of us were playing checkers,” said former White House investment adviser William Henagan, who worries the hidden lending has given China a chokehold on technologies. “Wars will be won or lost based on whether you can control products critical to running an economy.”

    China money gets a closer look

    While the U.S. still welcomes most foreign investment — and President Donald Trump has courted it — money from China has drawn particular scrutiny as the world’s two biggest economies with opposing ideologies battle for global supremacy.

    Deals financed by China’s state-owned banks, the ones studied in the AidData report, are especially problematic. The lenders are controlled by China’s central government and the Communist Party’s Central Financial Commission, and they are directed to advance China’s strategic goals.

    In total, the AidData report found China lent more than $2 trillion from 2000 through 2023 around the world, double the highest previous estimates and a surprise to even longtime analysts of China’s rise. And much of the lending to wealthy countries was focused on critical minerals and high-tech assets — rare earths and semiconductors needed for fighter jets, submarines, radar systems, precision-guided missiles and telecom networks.

    “The U.S., under both (former President Joe) Biden and Trump, have been beating this drum for more than a decade that Beijing is a predatory lender,” said Brad Parks, executive director of AidData. “The irony is very rich.”

    Shell games

    Until now, a full accounting of China’s state lending has never been published because much of the financing is buried beneath layers of secrecy, masked by Western-sounding shell companies and mislabeled by international databases as ordinary private financing.

    “There is a complete lack of transparency that speaks to the lengths to which China goes, whether through shell companies or confidentiality agreements or redactions, to make it extremely difficult to come up with this full picture,” said Scott Nathan, the former head of the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., an agency set up in the first Trump term to invest in foreign projects deemed in the U.S. national interest.

    Since the report’s last documented loan in 2023, U.S. scrutiny has gotten better. Screening mechanisms, such as the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., got beefed up in 2020 to protect sensitive sectors in the economy.

    But China has gotten better, too, in part by setting up banks and branches overseas — more than 100 in recent years — that then lend to offshore entities, further clouding the origins of the money.

    “In places where there are more cops on the beat,” Parks said, “it has found ways to work around barriers to entry.”

    Where the loans ended up

    Chinese state bank financing has touched projects across the U.S., particularly in the Northeast, the Great Lakes region, the West Coast and along the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump has renamed the Gulf of America. Many loans targeted critical high-tech industries, according to the report.

    — In 2015, for instance, Chinese state-owned banks lent $1.2 billion to a private Chinese business to buy an 80% stake in Ironshore, a U.S. insurer whose clients included the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and undercover agents who might need help paying legal bills in case they got into trouble in their jobs.

    U.S. regulators were unaware of the Chinese government involvement because the financing was funneled through a Cayman Island business with no obvious ties to China, according to the report. U.S. officials later realized the Chinese government could access information and ordered the Chinese buyer to divest.

    — That same year, the Chinese government published “Made in China 2025,” a list of 10 high-tech areas, such as semiconductors, biotechnology and robotics, where it wanted to reach 70% self-sufficiency within a decade. The next year, in 2016, the Export–Import Bank of China, a policy bank, provided $150 million in loans to help a Chinese company buy a robotics equipment company in Michigan.

    After China’s adoption of the manufacturing master plan, the percentage of projects targeting sensitive sectors such as robotics, defense, quantum computing and biotechnology rose from 46% to 88% of China’s portfolio for cross-border acquisition lending, according to AidData.

    — In 2017, a Delaware private equity firm using a Cayman Islands company tried to buy a U.S. chip maker; the deal was blocked when investigators discovered both companies were owned by a Chinese state-owned enterprise. That same Delaware company successfully bought a U.K. semiconductor maker that had to be divested when British authorities found out.

    — And in 2022, the U.K. forced a Chinese company to divest another sensitive British firm in the industry, a designer of chips in Apple phones but potentially adaptable for military systems. The Chinese company had bought it through a company in the Netherlands that they owned. That Dutch firm is now accused of withholding semiconductors vital to automakers in the U.S.-China trade war.

    Following the money

    To trace China’s hidden lending, AidData dug through regulatory filings, private contracts and stock exchange disclosures in more than 200 countries written in multiple languages.

    The effort to track China’s state loans and investment started more than a decade ago when Beijing launched its Belt & Road Initiative to build infrastructure in developing countries. The project expanded sharply three years ago when the AidData team, which eventually grew to 140 researchers, realized many of the loans were landing in advanced economies such as the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands and Portugal, where acquisitions could allow it to access technology that Beijing considers essential to its global rise.

    The report says the findings show a shift in the use of state credit from promoting economic development and social welfare to gaining geo-economic advantages.

    “There’s global concern that this is part of a concerted effort to gain control over economic chokepoints and use this leverage,” said Brad Setser, an adviser to the U.S. Trade Representative in the Biden administration. “It’s important that we understand what they’re doing, and they don’t make it easy.”

    ___

    Condon reported from New York.

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  • Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to UAE under US-approved deal

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.

    The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.

    The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S.

    Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he will allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he wouldn’t.

    “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.”

    The UAE’s ability to access chips is tied to its pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in U.S. energy and AI-related projects, an outsized sum given its annual GDP is roughly $540 billion.

    The UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the arrangement was “setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”

    Microsoft’s announcement Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the UAE, which is says has some of the highest per-capita usage of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated in the UAE more than 21,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.

    “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” said a company statement.

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  • Microsoft $9.7 billion deal with IREN will give it access to Nvidia chips

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    Microsoft has entered into a $9.7 billion cloud services contract with artificial intelligence cloud service provider IREN that will give it access to some of Nvidia’s chips.

    The five-year deal, which includes a 20% prepayment, will help Microsoft as it looks to keep up with AI demand. Last week the software maker reported its quarterly sales grew 18% to $77.7 billion, beating Wall Street expectations while also surprising some investors with the huge amounts of money it is spending to expand its cloud computing infrastructure and address the growing need for AI tools.

    Microsoft spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips and much of the rest related to data center real estate.

    “IREN’s expertise in building and operating a fully integrated AI cloud — from data centers to GPU stack — combined with their secured power capacity makes them a strategic partner,” Jonathan Tinter, president of business development and ventures at Microsoft, said in a statement. “This collaboration unlocks new growth opportunities for both companies and the customers we serve.”

    Microsoft also announced new deal with OpenAI last week that pushed the Redmond, Washington, company to $4 trillion in valuation for the second time this year. The agreement gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation but changes some of the details of their close partnership. Microsoft’s $135 billion stake will be just ahead of the OpenAI nonprofit’s $130 billion stake in the for-profit company.

    IREN also said Monday that it signed a deal with Dell Technologies to buy the chips and ancillary equipment for about $5.8 billion. The Australian company anticipates the chips being deployed in phases through next year at its Childress, Texas campus.

    Shares of IREN jumped 22% before the opening bell in the U.S. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly,.

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  • South Korean president calls for aggressive AI spending in budget speech

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called for tripling the government spending on projects for expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure and technology in a budget speech.

    Lee also called for lawmakers to approve a planned 8.2% increase in defense spending next year, which he said would help modernize the military’s weapons systems and reduce its reliance on the United States, as the allies’ military chiefs met in Seoul for annual security talks.

    Most conservative opposition lawmakers boycotted Lee’s speech amid an ongoing rift over a criminal investigation into former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief imposition of martial law in December.

    Lee’s speech came after South Korea last week hosted the leaders of major Pacific Rim nations for this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, which his government used to showcase its ambitions for AI and advance an effort at a trade deal with the U.S.

    In his speech at the National Assembly, Lee highlighted his APEC diplomacy and a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, which he said eased uncertainties facing South Korea’s trade-dependent economy by securing lower tariffs on automobiles and computer chips, two of the country’s key exports.

    He said the country was still facing a critical moment for “national survival” amid rapid changes in the global trade order and a “huge, transformative wave of AI.”

    Lee said the proposed budget of 728 trillion won ($506 billion), which would represent an all-time high for government spending, would be the country’s “first budget to open the AI era.”

    He called on the liberal-led legislature to approve 10.1 trillion won ($6.9 billion) in AI-related spending — more than triple this year’s level — to advance the country’s AI computing and manufacturing capabilities, with a particular focus on industries such as semiconductors, automobiles, shipbuilding and robotics.

    “Just as President Park Chung-hee paved the highway for industrialization and President Kim Dae-jung built the highway for the information age, we must now construct the highway for the AI era to open a future of progress and growth,” Lee said, referring to major development drives under Park’s dictatorship in the 1960s and ’70s and Kim’s presidency from 1998 to 2003, which focused on expanding South Korea’s internet infrastructure.

    Lee said South Korean companies would have little difficulty securing the chips for their AI projects, citing a deal for Nvidia, whose GPUs power much of the global AI industry, to supply 260,000 graphics processing units for AI infrastructure projects with major South Korean businesses and the government. The deal was announced following a meeting during APEC between Lee and Jensen Huang, the Silicon Valley company’s chief executive.

    It isn’t immediately clear when Nvidia — which agreed to deliver 50,000 GPUs each to the government, chipmakers Samsung and SK, and automaker Hyundai, and another 60,000 to internet company Naver — will deliver those chips. Huang told reporters in South Korea that AI data centers and power networks must first be established before the company can begin shipping the GPUs.

    Concerns have grown over the projects’ future after Trump said aboard Air Force One on Monday that only U.S. customers should have access to Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI chips, declaring, “We don’t give that chip to other people.”

    Lee proposed a defense budget of 66.3 trillion won ($46 billion) next year, which he said will be focused on modernizing the military’s weapons systems, including through the adoption of AI technologies, to make the armed forces more self-reliant.

    “It’s a matter of national pride that South Korea, which spends 1.4 times North Korea’s annual GDP on defense and is perceived as the world’s fifth most powerful military, continues to depend on others for its security,” Lee said.

    During his meeting with Trump, Lee reaffirmed South Korea’s commitment to increase defense spending and called for U.S. support for South Korean efforts to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

    Trump later said on social media that the United States will share closely-held technology to allow South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine, and that the vessel will be built in the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, which was bought last year by South Korea’s Hanwha Group.

    Lee’s speech came as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back were meeting in Seoul for the allies’ annual security talks. The meeting is expected to address key alliance issues, including South Korea’s defense spending commitments and the implementation of a plan to transfer wartime operational control to a joint command led by a South Korean general with a U.S. deputy.

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  • Microsoft to ship 60,000 Nvidia AI chips to UAE under US-approved deal

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    WASHINGTON — Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department.

    The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country.

    The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald Trump’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S.

    Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell if he will allow Nvidia to sell its most advanced chips to China, Trump said he wouldn’t.

    “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” Trump said. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.”

    The UAE’s ability to access chips is tied to its pledge to invest $1.4 trillion in U.S. energy and AI-related projects, an outsized sum given its annual GDP is roughly $540 billion.

    The UAE ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, said in a statement earlier this year that the arrangement was “setting a new ‘Gold Standard’ for securing AI models, chips, data and access.”

    Microsoft’s announcement Monday was part of the company’s planned $15.2 billion investment in technology in the UAE, which is says has some of the highest per-capita usage of AI. Microsoft had already accumulated in the UAE more than 21,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processor chips, known as GPUs, through licenses approved under then-President Joe Biden.

    “We’re using these GPUs to provide access to advanced AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, open-source providers, and Microsoft itself,” said a company statement.

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  • Nvidia partners with South Korean government, companies to boost AI development

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    GYEONGJU, South Korea — Silicon Valley chipmaker Nvidia plans to supply hundreds of thousands of its graphics processing units for projects with South Korean businesses and the government to advance the country’s artificial intelligence infrastructure and technologies.

    The plan was announced Friday by the government, Nvidia, and some of South Korea’s biggest companies, including chipmakers Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and auto giant Hyundai Motor, after President Lee Jae Myung met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

    At a news conference, Huang said he hopes to export Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on loosening U.S. chip restrictions as the two leaders pledged to reduce trade tensions.

    However, he acknowledged that it was up to Trump to decide, and said there were no current plans to sell the next generation Blackwell chips to China.

    Huang has gotten rockstar treatment reminiscent of Apple’s Steve Jobs since arriving in South Korea on Thursday to attend meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju. As APEC host, South Korea is using the gathering of world leaders to showcase its ambitions in AI.

    According to Lee’s office and the companies, Nvidia will supply around 260,000 GPUs to support South Korea’s AI computing and manufacturing capabilities.

    About 50,000 of the GPUs will be used to support a government project to build a national cloud computing center for AI and Nvidia will provide the same number of GPUs each to Samsung and SK to help them enhance their manufacturing processes through AI and accelerate the development of advanced semiconductors.

    Hyundai and Nvidia said they plan to collaborate on developing technologies related to self-driving cars, smart factories and robotics, a process that will be powered by 50,000 of Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell GPUs.

    Speaking to business leaders, Huang highlighted how AI and advanced computing are driving a profound transformation across industries, adding to the need for more infrastructure and capacity. South Korea’s strengths in software, technical expertise and manufacturing give it an edge, he said.

    “When you combine software, AI technology, and manufacturing, you have the opportunity to really take advantage of robotics,” which is the future of AI, Huang said.

    Santa Clara-based Nvidia, whose GPU chips power much of the global AI industry, featured in talks Thursday between Trump and Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, where the leaders agreed to take steps to ease their escalating trade war.

    Following the meeting, Trump said he discussed sales of computer chips to China. Trump and former President Joe Biden have imposed restrictions on China’s access to the most advanced chips, including those used for AI. Trump said China will speak with Nvidia about purchasing their chips, but not the company’s latest Blackwell AI chips.

    Nvidia has argued that U.S. export controls hinder American competitiveness in one of the world’s largest technology markets and warned that such limits could push other countries toward China’s AI technology. Talking to reporters in South Korea, Huang said he hopes to eventually sell Blackwell chips to China, “but that’s a decision for the president to make.”

    “We’re always hoping to return to China,” Huang said. “It’s in the best interest of the United States, it’s in the best interests of China. And so I’m hopeful that both governments will arrive at a conclusion someday where Nvidia’s technology could be exported to China.”

    Huang acknowledged U.S. security concerns about Nvidia technology being used by China’s military but argued that China already has ample AI capabilities, making the use of Nvidia chips for military purposes largely unnecessary.

    In August, Trump announced a deal with Nvidia and AMD, another chipmaker, to lift export controls on sales of advanced chips to China in exchange for a 15% cut of the revenue, despite concerns among national security experts that such chips will end up in the hands of Chinese military and intelligence services.

    Nvidia earlier this week confirmed that it has become the first $5 trillion company, just three months after the company broke through the $4 trillion mark. The milestone underscores the upheaval driven by the AI craze, widely seen as the biggest technological shift since Apple co-founder Jobs unveiled the first iPhone 18 years ago.

    But there are also concerns over a potential AI bubble. Officials at the Bank of England warned earlier this month that tech stock prices fueled by the AI boom could collapse, and the head of the International Monetary Fund has issued a similar warning.

    Hundreds of people, including reporters, gathered at a restaurant in southern Seoul on Thursday as Huang, dressed casually in a black T-shirt just hours after arriving in South Korea, shared fried chicken and beer with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Euisun Chung. The tech executives clinked glasses, took bomb shots, and at one point, Huang stepped outside to hand baskets of chicken and fried cheese to the crowd waiting outside.

    The three later took the stage before hundreds of cheering fans at a nearby gaming festival, where Huang said Korea’s gaming scene aided Nvidia’s early success back when it mainly made graphics cards for gamers.

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  • Microsoft shares once again surpass $4 trillion valuation, joining Nvidia

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    Microsoft Corp. once again surpassed $4 trillion in valuation, joining artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia in the exclusive club that also briefly included Apple on Tuesday. The sky-high valuations highlight the investor frenzy around artificial intelligence.

    Earlier in the day, OpenAI said it has reorganized its ownership structure and converted its business into a public benefit corporation after two crucial regulators, the Delaware and California attorneys general, said they would not oppose the plan. It also said has signed a new agreement with its longtime backer Microsoft that gives the software giant a roughly 27% stake in OpenAI’s new for-profit corporation.

    The news gave Microsoft’s shares a boost as the stock closed up 2% at $542.07, valuing the technology giant at $4.04 trillion. Microsoft’s valuation previously passed $4 trillion in July, making it the second company after Nvidia to reach the milestone.

    Apple’s shares, meanwhile, crossed the $4 trillion line earlier Tuesday before closing up slightly at $269 and a total valuation of $3.99 trillion. Thanks to the iPhone’s success, Apple was the the first publicly traded company to valued at $1 trillion, $2 trillion and eventually, $3 trillion.

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  • Anthropic inks multibillion-dollar deal with Google for AI chips

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    SAN FRANCISCO — SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Google to acquire more of the computing power needed for the startup’s chatbot, Claude.

    Anthropic said Thursday the deal will give it access to up to 1 million of Google’s AI computer chips and is “worth tens of billions of dollars and is expected to bring well over a gigawatt of capacity online in 2026.”

    A gigawatt, when used in reference to a power plant, is enough to power roughly 350,000 homes, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    Google calls its specialized AI chips Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs. Anthropic’s AI systems also run on chips from Nvidia and the cloud computing division of Amazon, Anthropic’s first big investor and its primary cloud provider.

    The privately held Anthropic, founded by ex-OpenAI leaders in 2021, last month put its value at $183 billion after raising another $13 billion in investments. Its AI assistant Claude competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and others in appealing to business customers using it to assist with coding and other tasks.

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