Cutting-edge pressure and BYD leads Tesla

Hi everyone! This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your techAsia host, saying hello from Taipei!

I just returned from a short trip to Hong Kong, where I attended a gala dinner and awards ceremony. I am excited to share some wonderful news with you: Nikkei Asia won the top prize in technology reporting from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) — a prestigious competition that places us alongside the biggest global news publications like Bloomberg, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

I vividly remember the journey that this award-winning coverage entailed. It was a lot of the hard work and collaboration with my incredible colleagues. One small anecdote I would like to share involves the subsea cable map we produced, tracing Chinese investment and involvement in undersea cables dating back to the 1990s. This project started with digging through decades-old Chinese government and telecom documents to identify every cable with Chinese participation. We then needed actual raw map data to allow our art team to visualise and illustrate these cables.

At one point, the project was almost dead when we discovered that the map data would cost $20,000, far beyond our budget. But after discussing strategy with my colleagues, I nervously took on the role of procurement specialist and managed to negotiate the price down to about $800 for just the data we needed. Lauly Li, Shunsuke Tabeta, Tsubasa Suruga and I interviewed several Chinese and foreign executives in various locations to gain insight from within the subsea cable sector in China and south-east Asia, perspectives rarely heard in global media.

Another standout project was our mapping of China’s electronics supply chain, highlighting the areas where the country has built competitive alternatives to global leaders. Looking back at the six years since Huawei was added to the US Entity List, it’s remarkable how much the global supply chain has shifted and how rapidly China’s localisation drive has taken off.

The launch of that feature was not as smooth as we had hoped. It coincided with breaking news that Nissan and Honda were in merger talks, and faced a technical glitch that prevented our graphics from displaying properly for the first 50 hours the story was up. But once that was resolved, we received great feedback from the industry for the depth and detail of our reporting.

The third story in the package looked at how China built a competitive advanced display industry previously dominated by Samsung.

There is a saying in Taiwan that goes, “Eat sugarcane from the bottom up,” which means each bite becomes sweeter than the last. And another familiar line sums up my feelings: “Every cloud has a silver lining.”

I want to express my deep gratitude to our art team, led by MinJung Kim and Michael Tsang, for transforming our raw research and reporting into clear and powerful graphics that our readers consistently find valuable. Special thanks also to Katherine Creel, our tech editor, and the entire Nikkei Asia editorial team for their endless support and collaboration in making these projects possible.

Hong Kong has always brought back fond memories. I hadn’t been back to the city since 2019, before Covid, and in some ways it felt like stepping into a time capsule, especially in terms of digital tech. Most taxis, for example, still only take cash — no Apple Pay or credit cards. I was lucky to find some leftover Hong Kong dollars in an old wallet before the trip.

After the awards ceremony, I joined colleagues from Nikkei and the Financial Times at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Over late-night drinks, I was reminded that Hong Kong was once the most important hub for international media. While many outlets have since moved staff to Singapore, Seoul or Taipei due to shifting geopolitics, the harbour view and historic architecture still say a lot about the city’s vibrant good old days.

Cutting-edge concerns

Chipmakers from Taiwan and South Korea are searching for their next growth drivers amid global macroeconomic uncertainty. Taiwan’s second-largest contract chipmaker, United Microelectronics Corp, is evaluating whether it should enter cutting-edge chip production, Nikkei Asia’s Cheng Ting-Fang writes. UMC’s CFO confirmed the company is exploring more advanced chip production, but noted that partnering with others to share the investment burden would be a key strategy.

UMC is eyeing chip production tech as advanced as 6nm, a level currently dominated by TSMC, Samsung and Intel, sources said.

Samsung, meanwhile, is still looking for customers for a new plant in the US, Kim Jaewon and Cheng Ting-Fang report. The world’s second-largest contract chipmaker is building a cutting-edge fab in Taylor, Texas, that it says will start production in 2026, four years after construction began. Sources say Samsung is holding off on equipment installation, however, as it has yet to secure enough customers to utilise the planned capacity.

Both UMC and Samsung, like many other chipmakers, face growing pressure from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, China’s top chipmaker, which has benefited from the country’s push to localise chip production and strengthen supply chain resilience.

Son’s succession signals

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has dropped his biggest hint yet about the future leadership of the technology conglomerate he started more than 40 years ago, writes the Financial Times’ David Keohane.

Son, who indicated he had the drive to stay in charge for another 10 years, said his successor was someone already working beside him within SoftBank.

“Deciding when to declare these two, three or four people are candidates is a matter of timing, and I wouldn’t want them getting overconfident or acting entitled. I also still have the desire to stay on a bit longer, so it’s about managing that delicate balance,” Son said at the group’s annual meeting in Tokyo.

Son referred to Junichi Miyakawa, the head of SoftBank Corp, the group’s listed telecoms unit, as someone doing an “extremely good job” and in whom he placed great trust.

People close to the group denied it was an indication that Miyakawa was in line for the top job. Instead, they said he was given as an example of how Son had already entrusted someone with one key part of the business.

Cat-eared, quadraped or humanoid?

Robots are shaping up to be the next big thing in the tech industry, but approaches are varied. Japan is focusing on practical, task-specific automation to address its labour shortages, particularly in sectors like restaurants and office maintenance, writes Ryohtaroh Satoh of Nikkei Asia. Tokyo-based research firm Fuji Keizai estimates the domestic service robot market will more than double from 2024 to 2030, reaching ¥400bn ($2.7bn), outpacing industrial robots.

Meanwhile, Apple supplier Foxlink aims to shift from being a traditional electronics component maker to an AI robotics solutions provider by 2030, Freddy Kou, head of its robotics division, told Nikkei Asia’s Lauly Li. The move aims to diversify revenue, reduce exposure to consumer electronics volatility, and capitalise on AI growth. Foxlink is investing in AI-powered robots for security and industrial automation and is leveraging Nvidia’s platform to accelerate development.

BYD vs Tesla

BYD continues to lead global electric car sales, outperforming major US rival Tesla for the third consecutive quarter, Yifan Yu of Nikkei Asia writes.

Both companies faced industry-wide headwinds, such as intensifying competition in China and growing macroeconomic uncertainties. But while BYD’s shipments jumped 42.5 per cent on the year for the April-June quarter, driven in part by a series of price cuts, Tesla sales fell around 13 per cent. The US company is facing some unique challenges, namely CEO Elon Musk’s increasingly strained relationship with US President Donald Trump, which investors see as an overhang on the company’s stock and business prospects and customer pushback against Musk’s political activities.

Suggested reads

1. US lifts curbs on chip design tool sales to China amid trade talks (Nikkei Asia)

2. Amazon developer plays down buzz over humanlike robots (Nikkei Asia)

3. BYD holds on to EV crown as Tesla faces robotaxi, Trump uncertainties (Nikkei Asia)

4. Crypto-crazy investors make South Korea the best-performing market in Asia (FT)

5. Donald Trump says he has found group of ‘wealthy people’ to buy TikTok (FT)

6. The Asian factories on the frontline of Trump’s tariffs (FT)

7. Malaysia seeks to boost VCs with new fund, tax incentives (Nikkei Asia)

8. The vulnerabilities holding back Chinese industry (FT)

9. Japan’s utilities pour billions into power grid amid data centre growth (Nikkei Asia)

10. US shoppers ditch Shein and Temu as Trump closes tax loophole (FT)

#techAsia is co-ordinated by Nikkei Asia’s Katherine Creel in Tokyo, with assistance from the FT tech desk in London. 

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