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Howdy, everybody! That is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host for this week, sending greetings from Taipei as we kick off the primary working week of the lunar Yr of the Snake.
When you dwell in a Mandarin-speaking place like Taiwan or China, the spring pageant, which celebrates the lunar new yr, is crucial vacation of the yr. Throughout this time, households historically collect for lavish feasts. Once I was a toddler, our celebration would begin within the late afternoon on New Yr’s Eve at my grandparents’ house within the countryside. We loved sizzling pots, marinated beef, slices of abalone, freshly steamed shrimp and fish, mullet roe and dumplings, all with infinite servings of fried turnip pancakes and candy glutinous rice muffins.
Over time, many households have steadily stopped cooking at house for the spring pageant as a result of getting ready so many dishes will be overwhelming. Final yr, we tried one thing new and took a visit abroad. Nonetheless, with US President Donald Trump having simply taken workplace and the probability that I must work over the vacation, we determined to remain in Taipei this yr and dine out. As a result of we left the choice till simply two weeks earlier than New Yr’s Eve, I ended up calling round 30 eating places — together with Indian, Japanese, Thai and Italian spots (Chinese language and Taiwanese eating places have been undoubtedly full) — till I may discover a desk. In the long run, we settled for a lodge buffet, the place we had steak and lobster, together with fries and macaroons served with English breakfast tea and low for our New Yr’s Eve dinner. My cousins later instructed me that they’d made their reservation at a conventional Taiwanese restaurant in one other metropolis as early as October to ensure a desk.
However Trump was not the one newsmaker throughout the vacation season. DeepSeek was additionally a high subject of dialog. Even my dad and mother, who don’t work within the tech business, have been asking what DeepSeek is all about and what it means for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Firm and Nvidia.
In the beginning of the Yr of the Snake, I visited a famend temple in my hometown of Tainan in southern Taiwan. Relationship again greater than 460 years, this historic web site is known for internet hosting Taiwanese President William Lai when he was on the marketing campaign path and on many different events. The temple was packed, however I used to be ready to participate in a particular ritual the place guests crossed a “fortune and luck” bridge, and I additionally obtained a sprinkling of “fortunate water”.
One other spotlight of the vacation was a Lunar New Yr’s Day interview with Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, the highest European chip tools maker. He supplied insights into AI and Japan’s efforts to rebuild its semiconductor business. What a memorable — and busy — begin to the yr!
Labs as a lifeline
China has many inventive methods to get round US commerce restrictions. One less-reported methodology is thru “pilot manufacturing traces” at state-backed laboratories throughout the nation, Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li of Nikkei Asia write.
These labs and universities, which frequently have higher entry to international tools than US-blacklisted chipmakers, are enjoying a key position in advancing the nation’s know-how. They’re quickly establishing pilot traces and buying machines for small-scale manufacturing, enabling them to benchmark domestically made tools and confirm designs for chipmakers and start-ups.
A notable instance is Hubei Yangtze Reminiscence Labs in Wuhan, the place many engineers from main Chinese language chipmaker YMTC, which was added to the US Entity Record in 2022, conduct trials and take a look at samples. Comparable labs specializing in superior chip packaging and rising silicon photonics applied sciences are additionally sprouting up in cities like Ningbo and Wuxi.
Beijing’s initiative really goes past semiconductors, with state-backed labs inspired to launch pilot manufacturing traces in areas from superior supplies and robotics to aerospace and satellites, based on a authorities doc considered by Nikkei.
Investigations and negotiations
China has revived antitrust investigations into know-how giants Google and Nvidia and can be contemplating a brand new probe towards Intel as Beijing appears for leverage in talks with Trump.
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation on Tuesday introduced it had opened a contest investigation into Google, write the Monetary Occasions’ Zijing Wu, Cheng Leng and Ryan McMorrow.
Two individuals accustomed to the matter mentioned the probe would deal with dominance of the US group’s Android working system and any hurt brought about to Chinese language phonemakers, corresponding to Oppo and Xiaomi, which use the software program.
Chinese language regulators, who introduced the same antitrust investigation into Nvidia in December, have been now additionally taking a look at launching a proper probe into Intel, mentioned two individuals accustomed to the state of affairs. Nonetheless, the character of the probe into the US chipmaker remained unclear, one of many individuals mentioned, including whether or not it was formally launched could possibly be affected by the state of US-China relations.
Beijing’s transfer to construct circumstances towards outstanding US tech firms comes as they’re more and more caught within the crossfire of rising tensions between the 2 international powers.
The Google probe, which regulators first started in 2019, had been shelved for years, however was reopened in December, mentioned two individuals accustomed to the matter. That transfer got here simply earlier than Trump, who had campaigned on guarantees of imposing steep tariffs towards Chinese language items, was sworn in as US president.
Vacation spot: Mars?
Over the previous few years, key tech suppliers to Apple, HP and Nvidia have shifted manufacturing from China to Thailand, India, Vietnam, Mexico and Taiwan, consistent with US stress to diversify away from Asia’s largest economic system. Nonetheless, this “friend-shoring” technique is now below menace from Trump’s unpredictable tariff insurance policies.
In keeping with an evaluation by Nikkei Asia’s Lauly Li and Cheng Ting-Fang, commerce deficits with these economies have considerably widened over the previous few years as a consequence of provide chain shifts, at the same time as America’s commerce imbalance with China has improved. As a result of Trump typically criticises commerce deficits and vows to appropriate them, investments on pleasant shores could not be as safe as they as soon as appeared, creating uncertainty and probably greater prices all through the availability chain.
Chairman TH Tung of Pegatron, a key provider to each Apple and Tesla, even joked that the one solution to be really secure from new tariffs could be to maneuver to Mars.
Loopy wealthy crypto buyers
Wealthy Asian buyers, notably in Singapore and elsewhere in south-east Asia, are turning their eyes to cryptocurrency investments, pushed by Trump’s re-election and the rise in bitcoin’s worth, Nikkei Asia’s Dylan Loh writes. In keeping with a survey by Aspen Digital, extra rich people — as much as 76 per cent of respondents — had invested in digital belongings in Asia for 2024 in contrast with the same ballot in 2022.
This surge has led to rising competitors amongst cryptocurrency platforms and conventional monetary establishments vying for deep-pocketed, high-asset shoppers. Whereas the potential for vital returns is attracting substantial funding, dangers stay, together with cryptocurrency’s excessive volatility, geopolitical uncertainties below Trump and a altering regulatory surroundings in Singapore, the place mass-marketing to retail shoppers is strongly discouraged.
Steered learn
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Japan’s Toto brings toilet manufacturing tech to chipmaking (Nikkei Asia)
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SoftBank and OpenAI to set up AI joint venture in Japan (Nikkei Asia)
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Panasonic ‘prepared to sell TV business,’ says president (Nikkei Asia)
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Taiwan’s Yageo to launch unsolicited bid for Japan peer Shibaura Electronics (Nikkei Asia)
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LG’s artificial intelligence unit has lacklustre market debut (Nikkei Asia)
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DeepSeek’s success will undermine the US-China tech war (FT)
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