{"text":[[{"start":11.65,"text":"Hi everyone! This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host for this week, saying hello from Taipei!"}],[{"start":18.45,"text":"In the two weeks since Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announced plans to increase its total US investment to $265bn, one destination has regularly come up in industry conversations: Arizona. Friends are flying there to explore business opportunities, while Taiwanese families who have settled in the southwestern state are returning home for the summer with stories of how quickly the region is changing."}],[{"start":44.75,"text":"“How many times have you been to Arizona this year?” one industry executive asked me, almost as a greeting."}],[{"start":51.45,"text":"The transformation extends far beyond the semiconductor industry. What began with chip factories is now reshaping the local economy, fuelling investment in shopping centres, restaurants, hotels, housing and other essential infrastructure."}],[{"start":66.85000000000001,"text":"Taiwan’s iconic dim sum chain Din Tai Fung, a favourite of TSMC chief executive CC Wei, opened its first restaurant in the Greater Phoenix area earlier this year, drawing long lines of customers. It is now preparing to open a second location near Intel’s manufacturing campus in Chandler, reflecting the region’s rapidly growing Taiwanese and Asian community."}],[{"start":88.95000000000002,"text":"Taiwanese investment is also spreading beyond chip factories. Investors linked to renewable energy company J&V Energy Technology recently spent $88mn to acquire land next to TSMC’s Arizona campus for commercial development. Kuan Yuan Paper, a longtime developer of technology parks in Miaoli, Taiwan, is also exploring opportunities in the state. A company representative told me he has already visited Arizona three times this year."}],[{"start":117.90000000000002,"text":"I also picked up two memorable figures from Steve Hsu, head of the Arizona Commerce Authority’s Taiwan office: 100,000 and 300."}],[{"start":127.30000000000003,"text":"The first number is how many people are moving to Arizona each year, underscoring the state’s rapid growth. The second has double significance: Arizona enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and is also home to more than 300 golf courses, a fact that is particularly appealing to many tech executives. For a state often linked with images of endless desert, droughts and gigantic saguaro, it is a reminder that Arizona is far more of an oasis than many people might imagine."}],[{"start":159.65000000000003,"text":"Doubling down on decoupling"}],[{"start":161.80000000000004,"text":"While most US companies have shifted production out of China to build more resilient supply chains, SpaceX is going a step further by seeking to minimise Chinese influence across its entire supply chain, Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li report."}],[{"start":177.05000000000004,"text":"The US rocket and satellite maker has dispatched teams to audit existing and prospective suppliers, instructing them not to employ or assign Chinese nationals at facilities producing parts for the company, as it seeks to minimise Chinese influence across its vast supply chain and safeguard critical US space missions."}],[{"start":196.60000000000005,"text":"Other measures include inspecting suppliers’ internal surveillance and networking systems and requiring them to replace Chinese-made equipment from companies the US considers national security risks, such as Hikvision. The moves serve as the latest example of a company helping advance US efforts to decouple the world’s two largest economies."}],[{"start":216.70000000000005,"text":"Welcome competition"}],[{"start":218.15000000000003,"text":"One of the world’s biggest AI investors said the emergence of the latest Chinese models has significantly raised competition with US rivals and will cut the cost of adoption globally, write the Financial Times’ Owen Walker and George Hammond."}],[{"start":232.95000000000005,"text":"GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has put AI at the heart of its investment strategy, ploughing billions of dollars into the emerging technology over the past few years. It led a $30bn funding round for Anthropic in February, positioning itself for a massive windfall if the company behind Claude follows through on plans to go public this year."}],[{"start":254.05000000000004,"text":"Yet the recent launch of large language models from Chinese labs such as Moonshot and DeepSeek has shown the gap between the US and China in developing state of the art AI is narrowing and sparked speculation that American tech companies could be overvalued."}],[{"start":270.05000000000007,"text":"“It’s something that we have been looking deeply into,” Bryan Yeo, GIC’s chief investment officer, told the FT. “We see the emergence of more of these open-weight models, some of which are from China, and we think it’s actually a positive for the global AI ecosystem because it’s going to bring costs down."}],[{"start":288.1000000000001,"text":"“By bringing costs down, it [leads to] faster, broader . . . adoption of AI across many companies and industries. As a result, the use cases are only going to grow . . . exponentially.”"}],[{"start":299.1500000000001,"text":"Yeo would not be drawn on whether the latest Chinese open-weight models — which are freely available to download — would pose a threat to US labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI, whose expensive frontier models remain closed."}],[{"start":312.6000000000001,"text":"AI jitters"}],[{"start":null,"text":"
"}],[{"start":314.3500000000001,"text":"Some of the biggest AI-related stocks suffered their worst week in months as investors grew increasingly concerned about whether record spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure can be justified."}],[{"start":327.30000000000007,"text":"The sell-off was broad-based, hitting nearly all of the sector’s biggest names, including Nvidia and TSMC. The memory sector, however, has been especially volatile despite reporting record earnings. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi — home to the world’s two largest memory chipmakers, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics — has been among the hardest hit, erasing almost all gains from this year, Jada Nagumo of Nikkei Asia writes."}],[{"start":353.6500000000001,"text":"Investor concerns intensified after China’s leading memory maker, ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), completed a blockbuster listing that valued the company above US chipmaker Intel, fuelling fears that Chinese competition in the memory market could accelerate in the years ahead."}],[{"start":371.6000000000001,"text":"The listing also marked a milestone for China’s Star Market, the country’s Nasdaq-style technology exchange, which has long sought a flagship semiconductor listing of this scale. CXMT became the first stock on a mainland Chinese exchange to surpass Rmb100bn ($14.8bn) in a single day’s trading turnover."}],[{"start":393.50000000000006,"text":"China’s product power"}],[{"start":395.3500000000001,"text":"China’s global market share in many key industries, including digital products and electric vehicles, continued to expand last year, according to a Nikkei survey."}],[{"start":404.9000000000001,"text":"Nikkei reviewed the market shares of the top five companies across 67 categories of goods and services that are critical to global economic activity and found that China’s product power is stronger than ever in almost 40 per cent of all categories examined, Yume Namekata writes."}],[{"start":421.6000000000001,"text":"The US remained the global leader in 2025, leading in 23 categories, though that is down from 27 a year earlier. China ranked second, leading in 19 categories, up from 18 in 2024."}],[{"start":435.05000000000007,"text":"In particular, China strengthened its position in batteries and electric vehicles, with Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) retaining its battery leadership and top EV maker BYD continuing to gain market share, largely at the expense of South Korean and Japanese rivals. In other sectors, including smartwatches and tablets, Huawei also expanded its share, narrowing the gap with market leader Apple."}],[{"start":460.75000000000006,"text":"Suggested reads"}],[{"start":462.25000000000006,"text":"1. AI boom seen bringing short-term inflation pain, little GDP gain in US (Nikkei Asia)"}],[{"start":470.30000000000007,"text":"2. Mark Zuckerberg says US should not ban Chinese AI (FT)"}],[{"start":476.05000000000007,"text":"3. Japan’s ispace bets on H3 rocket instead of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 for moon landing (Nikkei Asia)"}],[{"start":483.9000000000001,"text":"4. Chinese chip champion CXMT soars 466% in market debut (FT)"}],[{"start":491.80000000000007,"text":"5. BPO firm Teleperformance to open 1st Vietnam site as AI changes outsourcing (Nikkei Asia)"}],[{"start":500.6500000000001,"text":"6. Nvidia and Palantir urge US not to ban ‘open’ AI models after China scare (FT)"}],[{"start":507.5000000000001,"text":"7. AI supplier Innolight dips in Asia’s second-biggest listing of 2026 (Nikkei Asia)"}],[{"start":514.3500000000001,"text":"8. What is the risk of using Chinese open AI models like Kimi K3? (FT)"}],[{"start":519.7500000000001,"text":"9. Panasonic to end TV production in Malaysia, cutting jobs (Nikkei Asia)"}],[{"start":525.6000000000001,"text":"10. China’s Xi pursues AI diplomacy to woo global south (FT)"}],[{"start":531.3500000000001,"text":"#techAsia is co-ordinated by Nikkei Asia’s Katherine Creel in Tokyo, with assistance from the FT tech desk in London. "}],[{"start":539.0500000000002,"text":"Sign up here at Nikkei Asia to receive #techAsia each week. The editorial team can be reached at techasia@nex.nikkei.co.jp"}],[{"start":556.5500000000002,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1785592629_6355.mp3"}