While the American journal Foreign Policy highlights China's restrictions on mineral exports, particularly rare earth minerals crucial for EV motors and battery components, and their potential impact on the global economy, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun emphasizes that various Japanese non-ferrous metal industry leaders and startups are actively engaged in the development of material recycling technologies to address the mineral shortage. However, the timeline for these efforts to become financially viable remains uncertain, casting doubt on the availability of effective solutions.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the country exported over 2.34 million cars in the first half of 2023, up 76.9% from 2022. As China becomes the world's largest car exporter, many local automakers have entered the maritime and logistics industries to add some tailwinds to their journeys into the global market.
Japanese AI unicorn Preferred Network (PFN), after announcing in June its plans to develop a purely Japanese generative AI and related large language model (LLM), has recently gained access to supercomputing resources provided by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) to support its R&D of Japanese generative AI.
The economic benefit of TSMC's wafer factory in Kumamoto, Japan is larger than what was observed in 2022. Latest estimates have increased by 60% from the original basis made by a Japanese financial institution.
Huawei has tweaked its automobile business strategy to focus on the Huawei Smart Selection Car. The company is reportedly working with China-based carmakers like Changan Deep Blue, Chery Automobile, Arcfox and JAC Motors. According to Huawei, its automotive business unit is expected to achieve profitability in 2025 by selling over one million vehicles with the smart selection car and Huawei Inside (HI) models.
Samsung Electronics is not only the first company in the world to launch a labor-free semiconductor packaging line, but it has also set a goal of converting its packaging plants to be human labor-free by 2030.
China is keen on attaining self-sufficiency in high bandwidth memory (HBM), with ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) to be playing a leading role in the development of HBM, according to a media report.
Following rumors that said Samsung Electronics was considering halting some of its NAND flash production at its P1 facility in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, new rumors have now emerged that Samsung plans to convert some 128-layer NAND production lines to 236-layer NAND in the facility, focusing on advanced products rather than mature ones.
China has officially sanctioned its first roster of 11 LLMs on August 31. Industry stalwarts like Baidu, Tencent Holdings, and Huawei are among the key players that have received the government's endorsement. It is rumored that Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen is on the second batch of sanctioned LLMs.
The AI boom has fueled the high-performance semiconductor market. SK Hynix, in light of investment reduction, has elected to expand its HBM technology capabilities through recent allocations of internal packaging talent.
Apple finally confirmed its launch of the iPhone 15 series of products by sending out an Apple Event invitation recently. Market spectators said Apple is also likely to unveil some new wearable devices at the Apple Event, to be held on September 12 at its headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Huawei took the tech world by surprise with the unexpected launch of their latest flagship, the Mate 60 Pro, which claims to be the world's first smartphone with satellite-calling feature. This strategic move, just ahead of Apple's September event, carries significant competitive implications. However, essential chip details remain undisclosed.
Driven by significant grants under the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), South Korean battery makers LGES, SK On, and Samsung SDI have expanded their production investments in North America over the past year. However, they have recently begun to worry that relying on the IRA subsidies for their revenue structure may not be a sustainable solution given the immense cost pressures and geopolitical risks.
Reuters quoted Nvidia's latest regulatory filing reporting that the US is extending AI chip curbs beyond China to other regions, including some Middle Eastern countries.
At the 2023 Hot Chips forum, in addition to Intel's announcement of its data center chip product, the latest report from Korea's TheElec also pointed out Samsung Electronics has announced its research results on high bandwidth memory (HBM)-processing-in-memory (PIM) and low power DDR (LPDDR)-PIM as part of its efforts to focus on the AI sector.
