The US and China have each unveiled comprehensive AI action plans that position the technology as a pivotal element in national defense and foreign policy, effectively creating two major global AI camps. These strategies focus on competition for influence over third-party countries, where open-source AI models may play a decisive role

Cadence Design Systems expressed confidence in its second-half 2025 outlook despite lingering geopolitical uncertainties. In its second-quarter 2025 earnings call, executives affirmed steady China revenue expectations, rising momentum in advanced packaging, and minimal tariff exposure, underscoring the company's strategic positioning amid accelerating global demand for electronic design automation and semiconductor design tools

Cadence Design Systems posted strong second-quarter 2025 results and raised its full-year guidance, overcoming a US$140.6 million charge tied to unauthorized China exports. Robust EDA demand and AI-driven growth boosted performance, with analysts downplaying the penalty's impact and highlighting the company's improving margins and resilient market position

China's PCB upstream and downstream supply chain has seen massive expansion supported by government policies in recent years. However, the subsequent industry downturn has led to overcapacity, forcing manufacturers to cut prices to win orders, thus triggering a wave of intense internal competition

Chinese chemical makers are rapidly entering South Korea's semiconductor coolant supply chain following 3M's planned exit from the business. Firms like Juhua, ChemPacific, and Noah Fluorochemical are now supplying major chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix, marking China's growing influence in a critical segment of advanced semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure

US-based electronics manufacturer Jabil is close to completing its new plant in Sanand, Gujarat, Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed on X on July 26, 2025. The company is investing over INR20 billion (around US$238 million) in manufacturing silicon photonics and electronic manufacturing services at the site

The 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) was held in Shanghai from July 26 to July 29, 2025. Geoffrey Hinton, the 78-year-old AI pioneer, who won both the 2018 Turing Award and the 2024 Nobel Prize, made his first visit to China. He delivered a keynote speech at the WAIC opening ceremony on the morning of July 26 and engaged in a high-level dialogue with Bo-Wen Zhou, head of the Shanghai AI Lab, that afternoon

Recent tariff negotiations between Southeast Asian countries and the US under President Donald Trump have yet to produce finalized agreements with nations including Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. Automotive supply chain stakeholders anticipate that final tariff rates across Southeast Asia will converge, contributing to increased industrial relocation from China

As generative AI tools like ChatGPT capture global attention, a new frontier is emerging—physical AI, or artificial intelligence that can interact with the real world. While large language models are skilled at understanding and reasoning with words, they fall short when it comes to responding to real-world events in real time

US President Donald Trump, leveraging the vast domestic consumer market, has used tariffs as a powerful tool to steer global economic and trade dynamics. He has successfully opened previously closed markets for American products—for example, allowing US beef into Australia's large livestock industry and pushing for significant automobile exports to Japan, a major car manufacturing country. However, paradoxically, regardless of the tariff rates set, they remain subject to change at any time

Kioxia announced it will begin mass production of its ninth-generation NAND flash memory in fiscal year 2025, which runs from April 2025 to March 2026. The Japanese memory maker also began shipping samples of the new chip on July 25 from its Yokkaichi facility in Mie Prefecture

LG Display (LGD) has announced that it will ship around 6.5 million large-size OLED TVs and monitors in 2025, a year-over-year increase of 14.04%. With the depreciation of equipment at the Guangzhou OLED plant in China ending, LGD has outlined major plans to turn its operations profitable by the end of the year

While global attention focuses on the arms race in advanced semiconductor processes below 7nm, China is quietly setting up a formidable strategy in another area considered a "non-strategic sector"—the mature process node. Among these efforts, Pengsun (PST), established in March 2022, has emerged as a low-profile yet increasingly significant player on the international radar

President Donald Trump's recent flurry of trade deals have given Asian exporters some clarity on tariffs, but missing are key details on how to avoid punitive rates that target China's supply chains