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Tuesday 9 December 2025
China's Moore Threads sets developer conference to launch new GPU and escalate Nvidia challenge
After US President Donald Trump approved Nvidia's H200 exports to China on 9 December, domestic GPU start-up Moore Threads responded with rapid action.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Meta VP: AI will transform, not extinguish, job roles in advertising and beyond
As generative AI applications accelerate, public debates over whether AI will ultimately replace humans have intensified. Benjamin Joe, Meta Platforms' regional vice president for Asia Pacific, recently weighed in, stressing that while current AI models are powerful, they remain far from achieving human-like autonomy and proactive decision-making abilities.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Russia falls behind US and China in AI race amid sanctions, brain drain
Russia has fallen behind China and the US in artificial intelligence (AI) development, hindered by supply restrictions on critical hardware, international sanctions, and a significant outflow of skilled professionals. Despite President Vladimir Putin's repeated calls for Russia to lead in the AI field, experts widely acknowledge that catching up is no longer feasible.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Trend Micro sees high AI cybersecurity interest but limited orders
Trend Micro predicts that enterprise protection priorities in 2025 will be closely linked to AI technology development, but the market for actual implementation is still in its early stages. General Manager Bob Hung said that while customer inquiries about AI cybersecurity solutions are very high, actual order volumes remain limited. At this stage, revenue contributions still primarily come from traditional cybersecurity products.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Commentary: Are East Asia tensions a threat to supply chains?
The Indo-Pacific region has become the world's most critical theater for both technology manufacturing and geopolitical competition. As military tensions escalate across East Asia, executives are increasingly questioning whether their supply chains can withstand potential disruptions.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
China's AI chip race nears US$275bn; Cambricon, Hygon lead the field
Baidu is considering a spin-off and listing of its AI chip unit Kunlunxin, a development that has quickly become a focal point in China's fast-moving GPU and AI semiconductor market. The company said it is evaluating the potential listing but noted any move would require regulatory clearance and is not guaranteed.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
OpenAI introduces confession mechanism to enhance transparency in large language models
OpenAI has introduced a new safety research approach designed to improve honesty and transparency in large language models (LLMs). The method requires the model to provide a "confession" after answering a query, in which it self-assesses whether it lied, took shortcuts, or deviated from instructions, while also disclosing uncertainties and subjective judgments.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Johny Srouji to stay with Apple amid executive exodus
Apple chip leader Johny Srouji has reassured staff that he plans to stay with the firm for the foreseeable future, following reports that states he considered leaving for another tech company.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
South Korea AI startups face 56% survival rate, heavily reliant on government funding
South Korea aims to be a leading AI powerhouse, yet a report from the Korea Industrial Technology Association (KOITA) shows that only 56% of its AI startups last over three years. These companies rely significantly on external funding, highlighting a fragile R&D base in the industry.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Google to launch AI-powered smart glasses in 2026 as competition in wearable AI intensifies
Google said it plans to introduce its first AI-enabled smart glasses in 2026, expanding its push into consumer AI devices and positioning itself against rivals such as Meta. The company is developing two product categories: audio-only glasses that interface with its Gemini assistant, and eyewear with built-in displays capable of showing navigation, translations, and other augmented-reality overlays.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
IBM to acquire Confluent for US$11 billion to expand real-time data and AI capabilities
IBM said on December 8 that it has agreed to acquire Confluent in an all-cash deal valuing the data-streaming company at US$11 billion. Under the agreement, IBM will purchase all outstanding Confluent shares for US$31 each, a price approved by both companies' boards and supported by Confluent shareholders representing about 62% of voting power. The transaction, funded with IBM's cash on hand, is expected to close by mid-2026 pending regulatory and shareholder approvals.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Trump clears Nvidia's H200 shipments to China under new 25% revenue-share rule
US President Donald Trump said his administration will allow Nvidia to ship H200 AI accelerators to approved customers in China under conditions tied to national-security reviews and a 25% revenue payment to the US government. The move marks a major shift in Washington's chip-export approach and offers Nvidia a partial win after months of lobbying.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Taiwan FPC makers seek AI growth in wearables, high-speed transmission, and robotics
Facing US reciprocal tariffs that have dampened global consumer markets and ongoing price wars from China's PCB industry, flexible printed circuit (FPC) manufacturers relying solely on traditional businesses have seen their operations suppressed in recent years. Major players like Flexium Interconnect and Career Technology reported revenue declines throughout 2025 and remain in loss-adjustment phases.
Tuesday 9 December 2025
Analysis: Why isn't Huawei trying to win the tech war?
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei recently gave a public talk at the Huawei Lianqiuhu R&D Center in Shanghai. He shared insights on AI, quantum computing, computing power, and chips. He also answered questions from domestic and foreign researchers about the US-China tech competition.
Monday 8 December 2025
Research Insight: strong momentum expected for data center AI chip packaging in 2025-2030
According to the latest report published by DIGITIMES Asia, global data center AI chip shipments are projected to grow from 30.5 million units in 2024 to 53.4 million units in 2030. This data center AI chip category includes high-end and mid-range GPUs, application-specific AI chips (such as Google's TPUs), AI server CPUs, and networking/interconnect-related chips (e.g., Switch ASICs/rack-scale-up Interconnect Chips/DPUs & NICs).
Monday 8 December 2025
3Q25 global top 20 EMS/ODM rankings: Chinese firms shift to automotive electronics and AI servers
The global electronics manufacturing services (EMS) and original design manufacturing (ODM) supply chain experienced many structural changes during the third quarter of 2025. In the face of generative AI competition and geopolitical pressure, the global supply chain has been reshaped. For China's electronics manufacturers, this shift is a transformation from "Made in China" to becoming global manufacturing service providers.
Monday 8 December 2025
Foxconn leads global EMS market with strong AI and Apple momentum
According to DIGITIMES' latest EMS/ODM revenue ranking report, Taiwan has a significant dominance in the sector. Taiwanese firms account for 70% of the top 20 EMS/ODM companies, with Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) maintaining its position as the world's largest contract manufacturer in the third quarter of 2025, driven by growth in artificial intelligence (AI) and its close ties with Apple.
Monday 8 December 2025
Weekly news roundup: TSMC veteran's Intel move sparks debate, Samsung reportedly secures TPU HBM4 nod
These are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories in the week of December 1 to December 7, 2025.
Monday 8 December 2025
IBM CEO warns AI data center investments tough to break even due to short hardware cycles
As tech giants race to build data centers targeting artificial general intelligence (AGI), IBM CEO Arvind Krishna cautions that the industry is on a costly path that's difficult to recoup.
Monday 8 December 2025
EMS/ODM industry revenue growth powered by AI and Apple in the third quarter of 2025
DIGITIMES has reported that global EMS/ODM companies saw revenue growth in the third quarter of 2025, driven by AI as related orders sustained robust momentum throughout 2025, while Apple's impact became more pronounced starting in the second half.
Monday 8 December 2025
OpenAI’s next frontier? Altman explores a space detour with Stoke Space
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reportedly engaged in discussions to invest in or acquire Stoke Space, a rocket manufacturer, aiming to develop space-based data centers and compete with Elon Musk in the aerospace sector, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
Monday 8 December 2025
Schmidt says China’s AI ascent is losing lift as capital thins—but the real bubble, he argues, is in doubting AI
Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, has warned that China may fall behind the US in artificial intelligence (AI) development due to restricted access to funding. Speaking at a Harvard Kennedy School forum, Schmidt argued that the market currently underestimates AI's potential economic impact and dismissed notions of an AI investment bubble.
Monday 8 December 2025
India roundup: India flip-flops on mandatory security app installation
India backtracks on plan for pre-installation of security app after public pushback. Global AI firms are partnering with local giants for AI data centers in India.
Monday 8 December 2025
Ritek revives growth by becoming an AI infrastructure dark horse

Ritek Group CEO Wang Ting-chang said the group has long invested in AI-linked fields such as power, semiconductor materials, and packaging. Although invisible at the consumer end, Ritek has become an "invisible champion", supplying the tooling, materials, and power backup systems that underpin customers' AI deployment.

Monday 8 December 2025
Why VLA intelligence now dictates the future of humanoid robots

The market continues to place high expectations on humanoid robots, yet the sector remains far from real mass production despite its early commercialisation efforts. Analysts note that meaningful progress depends on advances in core intelligence, particularly the software functions acting as the robot's brain, centred on breakthroughs and deployment in vision technologies and multimodal large models.