Taiwan’s Trump strategy - Asian Tech Roundup

Plus: Apple tries to withhold information from Indian regulator in $38bn antitrust case

Welcome to Computing's weekly roundup of tech news in Asia. This time we look at Taiwanese attempts to charm the mercurial US administration, an Indian regulator’s ongoing attempts to juice Apple and Jensen on his travels.

Taiwan has been making significant overtures to the US, concerned that any deal with China could leave it vulnerable. Taiwanese chip companies have pledged at least $250 billion, including $100 billion from TSMC, to expand chipmaking, energy and AI capacity on American soil.

Taiwan also agreed to credit guarantees of at least $250 billion to support the establishment of full semiconductor supply chains in the US. This is on top of potential defence deals and promises to buy more US weapons which are still being argued about in the country’s parliament. In the latest of these initiatives, silicon manufacturer GlobalWafers is preparing to expand its $3.5 billion wafer facility in Texas, investing a further $4 billion.

How effective this strategy will be to stay in Trump’s favour is anyone’s guess but analysts believe is unlikely to have a major impact on US-China diplomacy. Still, they can but try.

Last week we reported that India’s competition regulator is losing patience with Apple’s foot-dragging in requests for information concerning a $38 billion legal case. The CCI will be further displeased by Apple’s latest tactic, denying access to its financial records while it seeks to have the relevant law overturned.

Finally, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is on his way to Beijing to seek a path that would allow him to export advanced chips to China, something blocked by China but now okayed by Trump, a move that Anthropic’s CEO has compared with selling nukes to North Korea and which may be overturned by the US Congress.

China

• In the latest episode of the “will they, won’t they” drama set in the world of high-performance AI chip production, Chinese customs officials have blocked shipments of US AI chips from entering China. The Trump administration only formally approved the exports (despite many expressing security and wider strategic concerns) a week ago. Source
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is planning to travel to China as he seeks to reopen a path for the import of the company’s advanced chips into China. Source
• Meanwhile, Trump's decision to allow the export of H200 GPUs to China is being challenged by Republican politicians who want Congress to have the final say. Source
• And Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei equated selling advanced chips to China with “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea”. Source
• Huawei has issued a critical statement following the EU Commission setting out plans to phase out components and equipment from high-risk suppliers in critical sectors as part of the Cybersecurity Act. Source
• According to Bloomberg, Alibaba is preparing to take its chipmaking arm public as the race for a Chinese competitor to Nvidia heats up. Source

India

• Apple is seeking to prevent the Competition Commission of India (CCI) from viewing its global financial records as part of a $38 billion antitrust investigation into its app store policies. Source
• India’s big four outsourcers - HCL, Infosys, TCS and Wipro - have all but stopped recruitment, despite all posting robust revenues for the last quarter. All four companies have stated that they are increasing their use of AI for service delivery. Source
• Mumbai-based digital giant Tata Communications reported its first profit rise in three quarters, amid healthy demand for cloud and connectivity services and solutions. Source
• India has signed a $3 billion LNG deal with the UAE, with plans to double bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2032. Source
• The government has delicensed half of the spectrum in the 6GHz band, making it available for uses like gaming and VR. However, the Wi-Fi Alliance argues that governments should allocate this band to Wi-Fi to counter chronic bandwidth shortages. Source
• B2B marketplace IndiaMART has stopped breaking out traffic figures, complaining that increased agentic traffic makes it impossible to distinguish bots from humans. Source
• India’s top selling smartphone brand in 2025 was vivo (21% market share) followed by Samsung (15%) and Oppo and Xiaomi (13% each). Source

Japan

• At the WEF’s Davos gathering, Japanese and EU leaders agreed to accelerate collaboration on issues including the supply of rare earth minerals. Source
• Memory vendor Kioxia’s shares have risen 800% in the last year, and the company’s production volume for the year is already sold out. Source1, Source2

South Korea

• South Korea is seeking to negotiate favourable terms for US tariffs on imports of memory chips, a presidential spokesperson has confirmed. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are two of the largest manufacturers who stand to be affected. Source
• South Korea is accelerating nuclear fusion energy research, targeting a demonstration fusion reactor by 2035. Source
• A workers’ union has warned carmaker Hyundai against deploying humanoid ‌robots without its approval. Hyundai plans to deploy the machines in its factories from 2028. Source
• South Korea has introduced new laws to govern AI, requiring companies to ensure human oversight in "high-impact" use cases including nuclear safety, the production of drinking water, transport, healthcare and financial uses. Source

Taiwan

• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, has told Nvidia and Broadcom that production capacity at its most advanced manufacturing nodes is struggling to keep pace with the voracious demand. Source
• US memory and storage manufacturer Micron has signed a letter of intent to acquire a chip manufacturing site owned by Taiwanese company Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) for $1.8 billion. Source
• Taiwan’s top negotiator has said that the country had agreed to build a "democratic" high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic AI partnership as part of the tariff agreement reached last week which aims to boost US chip manufacturing. Source
• Taiwanese silicon manufacturer GlobalWafers is preparing to expand a $3.5 billion wafer facility in Texas, according to its chairperson Doris Hsu. Source
• Contract device manufacturer Compal has warned the impact of surging memory prices on the industry. Source

Elsewhere in Asia

• North Korea: North Korean attackers are using a legitimate feature of Microsoft’s VS Code IDE to target South Korean government entities. Source
• UAE: Zoho Corporation has opened its first datacentres in the UAE. The facilities, located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, illustrate the growing importance of the UAE as a regional digital hub. Source
• Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia's National Infrastructure Fund and it’s AI company Humain which was established last year, announced a financing agreement worth up to $1.2 billion. The financing will support the expansion of AI and digital infrastructure in the kingdom, and follows deals agreed with xAI and AirTrunk for datacentre build outs. Source