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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is transforming the small Japanese farm town of Kikuyo into a key node in Asia’s chip supply chain. TSMC, as the company is known, dominates the global semiconductor business. At its home base in Taiwan, TSMC sits at the center of a web of factories, suppliers and engineering firms. In February, TSMC opened a factory, known as a chip “fab,” for fabricator, on a ridge overlooking Kikuyo. The Japanese electronics giants Sony, Denso and Toyota, major buyers of TSMC semiconductors, are investing huge sums in TSMC’s Japan subsidiary.

Persons: TSMC Organizations: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Sony, Toyota, TSMC’s Locations: Kikuyo, Taiwan, Japan, TSMC’s Japan

The United States and China are locked in a new race, in space and on Earth, over a fundamental resource: time itself. And the United States is losing. Global positioning satellites serve as clocks in the sky, and their signals have become fundamental to the global economy — as essential for telecommunications, 911 services and financial exchanges as they are for drivers and lost pedestrians. But those services are increasingly vulnerable as space is rapidly militarized and satellite signals are attacked on Earth. Yet, unlike China, the United States does not have a Plan B for civilians should those signals get knocked out in space or on land.

Organizations: Global Locations: States, China, United States

When Elon Musk unveiled the first Chinese-made Teslas in Shanghai in 2020, he went off script and started dancing. Mr. Musk had reason to celebrate. Mr. Musk would build one in Shanghai that would become a flagship, accounting for over half of Tesla’s global deliveries and the bulk of its profits. Mr. Musk initially seemed to have the upper hand in the relationship, securing concessions from China that were rarely offered to foreign businesspeople. Tesla’s China pivot has also tethered Mr. Musk to Beijing in a way that is drawing scrutiny from U.S. policymakers.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, Tesla Locations: Shanghai, China, Beijing

☆ Why Taiwan Is Building a Satellite Network Without Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Meaghan Tobin | John Liu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In Taiwan, the government is racing to do what no country or even company has been able to: build an alternative to Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. Starlink has allowed militaries, power plants and medical workers to maintain crucial online connections when primary infrastructure has failed in emergencies, such as an earthquake in Tonga and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Officials in Taiwan face constant reminders that its communication infrastructure must be able to withstand a crisis. The island democracy sits 80 miles from China, where leaders have vowed to use force if needed to assert claims that Taiwan is part of its territory. Taiwan experiences regular cyberattacks and near-daily incursions into its waters and airspace by the People’s Liberation Army, which has been built up in recent years.

Persons: Starlink Organizations: Elon Musk’s, SpaceX, Officials, People’s Liberation Army Locations: Taiwan, Tonga, Ukraine, China

The files also revealed a campaign to monitor closely the activities of ethnic minorities in China and online gambling companies. The files included records of apparent correspondence between employees as well as lists of targets and materials that showed off cyberattack tools. The documents came from I-Soon, a Shanghai company with offices in Chengdu. Three cybersecurity experts interviewed by The Times said the documents appeared to be authentic. Taken together, the leaked files offered a look inside the secretive world of China’s state-backed hackers for hire.

Organizations: The Times, Ministry of State Security, United Locations: Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, China, Shanghai, Chengdu

In November, a year after ChatGPT’s release, a relatively unknown Chinese start-up leaped to the top of a leaderboard that judged the abilities of open-source artificial intelligence systems. system as an alternative to options like Meta’s generative A.I. Mr. Lee’s start-up then built on Meta’s technology, training its system with new data to make it more powerful. Even as the country races to build generative A.I., Chinese companies are relying almost entirely on underlying systems from the United States. China now lags the United States in generative A.I.

Persons: Kai, Fu Lee, Lee, Lee’s Locations: China, United States

In 2014, when Lai Ching-te was a rising political star in Taiwan, he visited China and was quizzed in public about the most incendiary issue for leaders in Beijing: his party’s stance on the island’s independence. His polite but firm response, people who know him say, was characteristic of the man who was on Saturday elected president and is now set to lead Taiwan for the next four years. Mr. Lai was addressing professors at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai, an audience whose members, like many mainland Chinese, almost certainly believed that the island of Taiwan belongs to China. Mr. Lai said that while his Democratic Progressive Party had historically argued for Taiwan’s independence — a position that China opposes — the party also believed that any change in the island’s status had to be decided by all its people. The party’s position “had been arrived at through a consensus in Taiwanese society,” Mr. Lai said.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, “, ” Mr Organizations: Saturday, Fudan University, Democratic Progressive Party Locations: Taiwan, China, Beijing, Shanghai

The Taiwanese presidential candidate Lai Ching-te has for years been reviled by China’s Communist Party as a dangerous foe who, by its account, could drag the two sides into a war by pressing for full independence for his island democracy. Right up to Saturday, when millions of Taiwanese voted for their next president, an official Beijing news outlet warned that Mr. Lai could take Taiwan “on a path of no return.”Yet, despite China’s months of menacing warnings of a “war or peace” choice for Taiwan’s voters, Mr. Lai was victorious. Mr. Lai, currently Taiwan’s vice president, secured 40 percent of the votes in the election, giving his Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., a third term in a row in the presidential office. No party has achieved more than two successive terms since Taiwan began holding direct, democratic elections for its president in 1996. gathering outside its headquarters in Taipei, thousands of supporters, many waving pink and green flags, cheered as Mr. Lai’s lead grew during the counting of the votes, which was displayed on a large screen on an outdoor stage.

Persons: Lai Ching, Lai, Lai’s Organizations: China’s Communist Party, Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan Locations: Beijing, Taiwan, Taipei

In Guangdong Province, on China’s southern coast, a woman posted a photo of a boxed-up Japanese-brand air-conditioner that she planned to return in protest. In southwest China, the owner of a Japanese pub posted a video of himself ripping down anime posters and smashing bottles, saying he planned to reopen the business as a Chinese bistro. In many social media posts like these, the phrase “nuclear-contaminated wastewater” has appeared — the same wording used by the Chinese government and state media to refer to Japan’s release into the ocean of treated radioactive water from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Even before Japan started pumping out the first tranche of more than a million tons of wastewater last week, China had mounted a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about the safety of the release, stirring up anger and fear among millions of Chinese.

Locations: Guangdong Province, China, Japan

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said on Tuesday it would team up with three German technology firms to build a facility in eastern Germany capable of producing up to 40,000 microchips each month as part of efforts to further diversify its production locations. TSMC, the world’s largest maker of semiconductors, said it would invest 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion) and own 70 percent of the joint venture, to be located in Dresden. The German companies Robert Bosch, Infineon Technologies and NXP Semiconductors will each control 10 percent. The combined private and public investment, “including strong support from the European Union and German government,” is expected to total €10 billion, the company said. The plant would be TSMC’s first location in Europe, and represents a win for Germany, which has been seeking out manufacturers of microchips, the tiny devices essential for the country’s large automotive industry and countless other devices.

Persons: Robert Bosch, ” Organizations: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Infineon Technologies, European Union, Germany Locations: Germany, Dresden, Europe

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which is manufacturing the world’s most advanced microchips, conducts business on the island of Taiwan, dead center in one of the most geopolitically volatile places on the planet. That makes people in Washington very nervous. TSMC dominates the semiconductor industry; it’s a company that the United States can’t do without, 80 miles off the coast of China. The U.S. government has appropriated tens of billions of dollars to strengthen America’s own semiconductor sector and help fund TSMC’s nascent operations in the United States, far from China, which has never renounced the use of force to absorb Taiwan. But TSMC has invested billions of its own over nearly four decades growing deep roots in Taiwan.

Persons: TSMC Organizations: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Locations: Taiwan, Washington, United States, China, The U.S

That has thrust Mr. Chang, and the company he created, into the spotlight. “It doesn’t make me feel particularly good,” said Mr. Chang, who retired in 2018 but still appears at TSMC events. Even as the rivalry for tech leadership intensifies, he does not give China much of a chance for semiconductor supremacy. “We control all the choke points,” Mr. Chang said, referring collectively to the United States and its chip-making allies such as the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. When TSMC stumbled after the 2008 financial crisis, he returned as chief executive at age 77 to take over again.

Persons: Chang, ”, “, ” Mr, TSMC Organizations: Samsung, Intel Locations: United States, China, Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, TSMC

☆ With Ban on Micron, China Escalates Microchip Clash With U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Paul Mozur | John Liu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When cutting foreign technology companies from Chinese supply chains, Beijing has long chosen to work obliquely or even secretly. Regulators would give executives back-room lectures, weigh them down with excessive red tape or hit them with occasional office raids. But that is what it signaled to Micron Technology in a late-night announcement on Sunday. The Chinese government banned companies that handle critical information from purchasing microchips made by the Boise, Idaho-based Micron. Analysts said the company, which has been selling chips in China for years, could find itself cut out of future business from Chinese companies.

☆ As China Looms Over Taiwan’s Presidential Race, the Opposition Picks a Moderate
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( John Liu | Paul Mozur | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once a dominant political force, Taiwan’s main opposition party lost the last two presidential elections in large part because it has promoted closer ties with China. Mr. Hou launched his bid with a rallying call. “We must unite for victory, especially at this stage when our country is facing fierce and dangerous international circumstances,” Mr. Hou said following the announcement of his nomination. His candidacy sets the stage for a tight race next January that could chart a new course for Taiwan in the big-power standoff between China and the United States and reshape tensions around the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s most dangerous flash points. Under the seven-year leadership of President Tsai Ing-wen of the governing Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan has come under intensifying military and diplomatic pressure from China and pushed back by bolstering ties with the United States.

☆ ‘De-Americanize’: How China Is Remaking Its Chip Business
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Chang Che | John Liu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last October, construction plans for a hulking semiconductor factory owned by a major state-backed company in central China fell into disarray. The facility belonged to Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation, or YMTC, a memory chip company that Xi Jinping, China’s president, has extolled as a flag-bearer in China’s race toward self-reliance. Now, the chip maker and its peers are hurriedly overhauling supply chains and rewriting business plans. Nearly seven months later, the U.S. trade barriers have accelerated China’s push for a more independent chip sector. Western technology and money have pulled out, but state funding is flooding in to cultivate homegrown alternatives to produce less advanced but still lucrative semiconductors.

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