Nvidia lao đao ở Trung Quốc, Nhật Bản khủng hoảng chip công suất trước sức ép từ Trung Quốc

• Tình trạng thời tiết cực đoan tại Đài Loan và Hong Kong gây ảnh hưởng tới nông nghiệp, vận tải và chuỗi cung ứng chip. Đài Loan đang tranh luận về việc duy trì điện hạt nhân, với Pegatron ủng hộ mạnh mẽ để đảm bảo an ninh năng lượng phục vụ ngành chip và AI vốn tiêu thụ điện lớn.

• Nvidia chịu sức ép tại Trung Quốc khi chip H20, phiên bản hạ cấp để tránh lệnh trừng phạt Mỹ, bị Bắc Kinh cảnh báo về “rủi ro an ninh”. Tuy nhiên, nhu cầu từ Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance và Baidu vẫn rất cao. Nvidia đã đạt thỏa thuận với chính quyền Trump, trả 15% doanh số H20 để được phép tiếp tục bán. Dù Bắc Kinh khuyến khích dùng chip nội địa, không có lệnh cấm chính thức.

• SoftBank và Intel thảo luận về khả năng mua lại hoặc hợp tác trong mảng foundry (sản xuất chip hợp đồng) của Intel. SoftBank đã đầu tư 2 tỉ USD vào cổ phiếu Intel. Chính phủ Mỹ còn xem xét mua 10% cổ phần Intel để củng cố ngành bán dẫn trong nước.

• Thị trường chứng khoán Trung Quốc bùng nổ sau “đình chiến thuế quan” Mỹ - Trung: chỉ số ChiNext tăng 26%, vượt xa CSI 300 (9%) và Hang Seng (10,5%). Công ty Victory Giant Technology, nhà cung cấp PCB cho máy chủ AI của Nvidia, tăng hơn 450% từ đầu năm 2024.

• Ngành chip công suất Nhật Bản gặp bế tắc khi liên minh Toshiba – Rohm không đạt tiến triển lớn. Năm tập đoàn lớn (Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, Toshiba, Rohm, Denso) mỗi bên chỉ chiếm chưa tới 5% thị phần toàn cầu. Trong khi đó, Trung Quốc mở rộng sản xuất chip công suất, thúc đẩy ngành xe điện nội địa dùng chip nội.

📌 Nvidia tiếp tục thống trị AI nhưng chịu sức ép kép từ Mỹ và Trung Quốc; H20 vẫn hút cầu tại Bắc Kinh. SoftBank chi 2 tỉ USD vào Intel, mở đường hợp tác sâu hơn. Chứng khoán công nghệ Trung Quốc tăng 26%. Ngược lại, Nhật Bản gặp khó tái cấu trúc ngành chip công suất khi 5 tập đoàn lớn không đạt đồng thuận, trong khi Trung Quốc đẩy mạnh chiếm lĩnh thị phần. Năng lượng và chip đang trở thành trọng tâm trong cạnh tranh công nghệ châu Á.

https://www.ft.com/content/30c13c06-fcba-444b-96fc-cbe17f2969e8

Nvidia’s outlook in China and Japan’s power chip problem
The inside story on the Asia tech trends that matter, from Nikkei Asia and the Financial Times
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Lauly Li, Cissy Zhou, Yifan Yu, David Keohane, Leo Lewis, Michael Acton, Stephen Morris, Joe Miller, Wataru Suzuki and Ryohtaroh Satoh

Hi everyone! This is Lauly, sending greetings from humid and warm Bangkok where I am on a reporting trip.
I experienced one of the worst traffic jams I can recall on my way from the airport to the hotel on Tuesday. The trip was supposed to take around 40 minutes but ended up taking an hour and 45 minutes. There were several spells in the bumper-to-bumper traffic where we could only inch forward as I jealously watched motorcyclists zipping by us. I thought about how suppliers had warned me that the traffic situation would be a downside to developing Thailand’s tech manufacturing industry, as it would drag down the efficiency. That might be true.
At one point, I tried to think positively and enjoy watching the blossoming magnolia trees along the road. They reminded me of a small bouquet of chrysanthemums I bought a few days ago at a florist’s shop in Taipei, with beautiful peach and salmon-pink flowers.
Speaking of flowers, I was surprised when I entered the florist and saw how small the selection was. The owner explained to me that typhoons and numerous floods in central and southern Taiwan since early July had severely damaged agricultural goods, including flowers. This was unusual, considering Taiwan hasn’t been hit by so many typhoons in years. Fewer typhoons had led to serious droughts that endangered the tech and chip supply chain.
Extreme weather has hit much of the region. A friend working for an airline in Hong Kong told me that a “black rain” warning, which means extremely heavy rain, delayed her flight duty to Beijing for hours. Once passengers had boarded, they were stuck on the ground for several more hours as the bad weather continued before the airline finally decided to postpone the flight to the next day.
Back in Taiwan, there is an escalating debate over the use of nuclear energy. A public referendum to be held on Saturday will ask voters if the Third Nuclear Power Plant should continue operating after authorities confirmed there are no safety concerns with the plant. Nuclear power has always been a highly politicised issue in Taiwan, with sharp divides between the ruling Democratic Progressive party and the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party.
TH Tung, chair of iPhone assembler Pegatron, has been a strong advocate for nuclear over the past two years, saying it would enhance the island’s energy security and support its vital chip and AI industries, which are both very power hungry. The tycoon even attended a televised debate last Friday against DPP lawmaker Chuang Jui-hsiung convened by the Central Election Committee for the upcoming referendum.
Energy is a critical issue for other Asian economies that aim to develop their AI and high-tech industries, as Nikkei Asia reported earlier. Every economy wants to seize the once-in-a-generation opportunity to have its own AI capabilities and build a supply chain outside of China, but they will have to face the question of whether they can secure enough clean energy to sustain economic growth and combat global warming.
Still hungry
Despite the Chinese government’s unexpected public warning over alleged “security” issues with Nvidia’s H20, a downgraded AI chip specially designed for the Chinese market, demand from local tech giants remains strong, write Nikkei Asia’s Cissy Zhou, Yifan Yu, and Lauly Li.
Nvidia, the world’s dominant AI chip provider, has been feeling the geopolitical heat lately. It recently struck a deal with US President Donald Trump to pay 15 per cent of the sales of H20 to the US government in order to resume selling the chip to the Chinese market.
Not long after, Beijing summoned Chinese tech companies like ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu to discuss their use of Nvidia chips and encourage them to use more homegrown options, sources said.
The silver lining for Nvidia is that Beijing was not issuing a ban but rather “advice” on the company’s products, and Chinese tech companies’ pent-up demand for the H20 and upcoming Blackwell chips remains strong, according to industry sources.
Chip chats
SoftBank’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son held talks with Intel’s chief executive about buying its faltering contract chipmaking business in the weeks before Monday’s announcement that the Japanese company would invest $2bn in the US group’s shares, write the Financial Times’ David Keohane, Leo Lewis, Michael Acton, Stephen Morris and Joe Miller.
Son has met Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan since the latter’s appointment in March to discuss a potential deal, according to multiple people with knowledge of the talks. The US company is seeking to find a solution for its advanced chip manufacturing business, which is struggling to compete with Taiwan’s TSMC.
The talks were wide-ranging and could have led to multiple outcomes, including joint ventures with third parties or a minority investment similar to that announced on Monday. However, two of the people said the announcement did not preclude a bigger deal over Intel’s so-called foundry business in the future.
SoftBank and Intel declined to comment.
Son’s ambitions are being fuelled in part by the US government’s ambitions for Intel. On Wednesday, Trump’s White House said that it was “ironing out the details” of a deal that would entail the US government taking a 10 per cent stake in the company.
On the rise
Line chart of End of 2024 = 100 showing ChiNext has started outperforming benchmark index
Chinese tech suppliers are enjoying a surge in stock performance as the world’s two superpowers continue to keep a lid on the trade war, Nikkei Asia’s Wataru Suzuki writes.
The ChiNext Index, which tracks many Shenzhen-listed companies tied to the global supply chain, is up nearly 26 per cent since Washington and Beijing first agreed a tariff “truce” in Geneva on May 12. It has outperformed the 9 per cent gain in the broader benchmark CSI 300 Index and the 10.5 per cent rise in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index over the same period. That truce was extended for another 90 days on Aug 12.
Some of the biggest winners from this risk-on appetite are emerging from the country’s high-tech supply chain. Victory Giant Technology, a supplier of printed circuit boards for Nvidia’s AI servers, is up more than 450 per cent this year, with most of the increases coming in the past three months, making it the biggest gainer on the ChiNext Index.
“Investors in China are responding positively to the fact that external pressure has eased,” said Hiroya Yamauchi, China and Asia market specialist at Nikko Asset Management.
Power players
Japanese makers of power semiconductors have long held an important position in the global supply chain. Now, as they are being challenged by the rise of Chinese rivals, they are struggling to form a united front, writes Nikkei Asia’s Ryohtaroh Satoh.
A major power chip alliance between Toshiba and Rohm has struggled to produce tangible results beyond a co-manufacturing project. According to sources briefed on the situation, discussions on deeper collaborations, initially announced in early 2024, have “stalled.”
The lack of visible progress highlights the difficulties in significantly restructuring Japan’s power chip industry, which boasts five major players: Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, Toshiba, Rohm and Denso, each of which has less than 5 per cent of the global market.
Power semiconductors, which control current flow, are less advanced than AI chips or central processing units (CPU) used for smartphones or PCs, but they are vital in everything from power grids to electric vehicles.
Japan’s power chip industry woes come as China has been aggressively expanding production capacity for mature chips while pushing its automobile supply chain, a heavy consumer of power chips, to use more local supplies.