Hi everyone! This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host for this week.
I just got back to Taipei from a weekend trip to Singapore to take in the tropical sea views and a Lady Gaga concert — and for a brief, refreshing break after the Computex trade fair.
A news alert this month caught my eye: Zhao Weiguo, former chair of Tsinghua Unigroup and a prominent figure in developing China’s semiconductor industry, was handed a suspended death sentence for corruption. This news triggered a vivid memory of my meeting with Zhao years ago, held in a high-ceilinged meeting room furnished with leather chairs. I still remember the way he swaggered into the room and how he chain-smoked four or five cigarettes. During our hour-long conversation, I found myself surrounded by a haze of white smoke that blurred my eyes as he passionately shared his ambitions for turning China’s chip industry into a global player. If Taiwan and South Korea can develop a competitive industry, he said, “China can, too. It just needs time.”
Tsinghua Unigroup spearheaded the establishment of many chip plants in Nanjing, Chengdu and Chongqing. Zhao himself not only inked a deal to acquire a stake in leading storage player Western Digital, but also announced his company was buying 25 per cent stakes in three leading Taiwanese chip packaging houses. He also secured an investment from Intel for Tsinghua’s mobile chip design unit, and even boasted that he would acquire top us memory chipmaker Micron.
However, none of Zhao’s ambitions materialised before he came under investigation in 2022. Many chipmaking projects were simply scrapped due to a lack of tech and talent, and the Intel-linked venture was terminated. Some chip industry executives even suggested that Zhao’s aggressive global shopping spree indirectly contributed to heightened global scrutiny of China’s chip and tech ambitions.
Such flamboyant aggression stands in stark contrast to the humble attitude of the chip engineers featured in the upcoming documentary “A Chip Odyssey”.
I attended an advance screening last week of the film, which is slated to go online in mid-June. It highlights Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and the engineers who would go on to found the island’s leading chipmakers: TSMC, UMC and MediaTek. They recounted Taiwan’s transformation from an obscure, internationally isolated island into one of the world’s top chip economies. The documentary is filled with people who spent decades working with quiet dedication, away from the spotlight. Indeed, a prevailing view in the chip industry has always been that action speaks louder than words and that success relies entirely on meticulous execution built on years of commitment, rather than flashy presentations or empty promises.
However, humility and flawless execution alone are no longer enough to navigate the new challenges facing the chip industry, namely, geopolitics and US President Donald Trump.
I recently spoke with Arthur Chiao, chair of memory chipmaker Winbond, whose insights were quite illuminating. “Regionalisation” and “customisation”, he said, will be crucial for securing business in this rapidly changing world. As such, his company’s chip design affiliate, Nuvoton, is considering opening new design centres in Canada and India. When asked about the outlook for 2025, however, he had some more immediate advice.
“There are some rush orders currently, and we are trying to enjoy this exact moment now. We truly don’t know what will happen tomorrow or next month.” The only thing to do for now, he added, is “live one day at a time!”
Huawei’s chemical romance
Huawei is a prime example of a company quietly dedicating time and energy to developing cutting-edge technologies. Now, the Chinese tech giant is branching into a new area: chipmaking chemicals.
The company, which the US views as a security threat, is supporting a venture that aims to produce “end-to-end” solutions for vital materials and chemicals, Nikkei Asia’s Cheng Ting-Fang reports. This includes making a push into the high-end photoresist market, which has long been dominated by Shin-Etsu, JSR and TOK of Japan. Photoresists are used in the process of printing integrated circuits, a key step in chip production.
The new venture, called Zhuhai Cornerstone Technologies, has hired experienced professionals from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan over the past two years, and boasts production lines and R&D centres across China, including in Shenzhen and Zhuhai.
Chip materials and chemicals need to be of the highest grade and purity, and are just as critical as chipmaking equipment in determining the overall quality of chip production.
India investment
Apple’s main contractor in India is setting up a $1.5bn component plant near Chennai, despite escalating criticism from Trump, who wants the company to make iPhones in the US, write the Financial Times’ John Reed and Tim Bradshaw.
Foxconn, which has assembled Apple’s devices in India for years, is setting up a display module assembly unit a short drive from another plant in Tamil Nadu state where the Taiwanese company assembles iPhones.
The investment would boost Apple’s Indian operations, which assemble devices mostly from imported components.
Tamil Nadu officials approved the Rs131.8bn ($1.5bn) investment by Foxconn’s Indian unit Yuzhan Technology India back in October — before Trump was reelected — saying the new display unit would create about 14,000 jobs. Foxconn last week announced a $1.5bn investment in Yuzhan in a London Stock Exchange filing, but did not say what it was for.
This is likely because Apple’s pivot from China to India is so sensitive, due to Trump’s tariff war and pressure on companies to “reshore” manufacturing back to America. A few hours after the FT’s report, Trump threatened Apple and Samsung with 25 per cent tariffs unless they shifted production to the US.
Xiaomi dips into chips
There are other newcomers to the chip war. Xiaomi, the top smartphone maker in China and third largest in the world, is designing its own smartphone chipsets, an area in which only a handful of players remain due to years of consolidation and massive investment.
Founding chairman Lei Jun said only with its own chips can Xiaomi be called a great tech company and touted its new chip as being on par with Apple’s offerings.
Xiaomi setting its sights on Apple is not the only example of US-China rivalry in consumer tech. Tech giants in both countries, including Google, Microsoft, Alibaba and Tencent, have released a series of more powerful and efficient AI models.
The key questions, however, may no longer be whose AI is more powerful, but whose is more useful, Nikkei Asia’s Yifan Yu and Cissy Zhou write. The rise of AI agents — digital assistants capable of performing complex tasks for users — has become a focal point of the AI race, especially as investors become more anxious to see massive investments in chips and data infrastructure pay off.
Asia eyes Harvard talent
Many universities in Asia saw an unexpected opportunity to attract top global talent when the Trump administration took steps to dismantle Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students, writes Nikkei Asia’s Yifan Yu. Leading schools in the region, such as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and the University of Tokyo, quickly said that they were considering or open to enrolling Harvard students affected by the move.
Adding to the uncertainty, the Trump administration is exploring the possibility of revoking international students’ eligibility to seek employment in the US after graduation.
Given that Asian students accounted for more than 70 per cent of all international students in the US for the 2023-2024 academic year, these new policies could cause massive disruptions in the flow of global talent.
Suggested reads
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Inside China’s ‘stolen iPhone building’ (FT)
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Trump administration ties bitcoin to US-China rivalry amid regulation revamp (Nikkei Asia)
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Nvidia chief Jensen Huang condemns US chip curbs on China as ‘a failure’ (FT)
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Mitsubishi Electric weighs ‘painful’ exit from businesses worth $5.5bn (Nikkei Asia)
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US wins if DeepSeek runs on American AI chips, Nvidia CEO says (Nikkei Asia)
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Tata Consultancy Services carries out internal probe into M&S hack (FT)
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China vies for lead in the race to self-driving vehicles (FT)
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Trip.com aims to double overseas revenue ratio within 5 years: CEO (Nikkei Asia)
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BYD price bombshell raises spectre of wider China EV consolidation (Nikkei Asia)
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Trump’s Middle East dealmaking could reshape the global AI race (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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