SpaceX, Tesla to Spend $16.8B on Terafab Chip Factory in Texas
The move comes as Elon Musk’s companies look to secure chip capacity for AI, robotics and space-based data centers.
Chip Manufacturing
America wants to win the AI race but its own contradictions keep getting in the way
The United States is worried that China has its hands on advanced chip-making machines, sent to them by ASML.
Howard Lutnick, the US Commerce Secretary, reportedly sat down with ASML executives several times to share his fear that an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine had somehow landed in Chinese hands. Such a move would break US export rules, which forbid sending ASML’s EUV machines to restricted places like China.
The fact that Lutnick raised this shows Washington has not let its guard down on sensitive tech sales to China, even as President Donald Trump has recently loosened some chip export limits there.
Bloomberg broke the story first, noting that the White House gave reporters no evidence to back up Lutnick’s private remarks.
ASML pushed back on Friday, stating it had “never shipped an EUV machine to China, nor have we shipped to China any component, module, or equipment specially designed to be used in an EUV machine.”
The Dutch government told Reuters it strictly applies its licensing rules to chip-making “equipment, components and technology that explicitly fall under these rules.”
EUV weighs 180 metric tonnes and is as huge as a school bus. TSMC uses this machine for the production of chips used by US top companies like Nvidia. This is why China stays a step back in reaching the level of US chipmakers. However, it was also reported last year that China is attempting to make its own EUV.
That report by Reuters said that it was former ASML engineer working on the prototype for China, country’s own Manhattan Project as reported by Cryptopolitan previously.
U.S has kept a close watch on ASML
The U.S. is also wary of ASML’s maintenance agreements there and has raised questions about its sale of deep ultraviolet (DUV) systems to Chinese buyers, a business that makes up as much as a fifth of the firm’s total revenue.
In April, US lawmakers proposed a bill that would push American allies to match Washington’s stricter export controls, naming ASML directly in the draft legislation.
ASML responded by saying it understood the national security reasoning behind rules in both the US and the Netherlands and remained fully committed to following them.
On the other hand, Trump has eased up on some tech export limits toward China. Nvidia received approval in January to sell its H200 AI chips there, and last month, ten Chinese companies were cleared as buyers. Still, Beijing has been encouraging its tech industry to choose domestically made chips instead.
A seperate worry is brewing across the Atlantic
A speculative essay titled Europe 2031, written by a group of Brussels-based researchers, pictures a future where the US and China leave Europe behind because it failed to invest in datacentres, robotics, and homegrown AI.
The piece appeared just one day before the Trump administration reportedly moved to block “foreign nationals” from accessing an AI model called Fable, built by Anthropic.
The essay spread quickly during a week of G7 meetings, fueling talk about the need for Europe to build its own tech independence. Its writers say they feel “vindicated,” partly because one of their predictions, that the US would limit global access to advanced AI systems, briefly came true.
The essay is part of a wider trend of speculative AI scenarios that have drawn attention from officials, including a 2025 piece called AI 2027 that was reportedly read by US Vice President JD Vance.
U.S faces growing data center criticism
Back home, US opposition to data centers has been growing quickly, moving from local complaints into broader fights over land use and resources. Monterey Park, California, became the first US city to permanently ban large data centers this month after residents voted strongly in favor.
New York lawmakers passed a one-year halt on new large-scale data center projects. As of June, fourteen states have weighed similar restrictions, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, as officials in Washington increasingly view advanced AI systems as strategic national assets.
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Huawei just rewrote the rules of chipmaking. Can U.S really stop China’s AI takeover?
Huawei has achieved a breakthrough in building advanced chips in half a decade. The company announced a new technology called LogicFolding, which will allow them to stack computer circuits on top of each other.
This technology will save them from the need to buy machines to make the chips smaller. He Tingbo, who leads Huawei’s chip division, said at a tech conference in Shanghai on Monday that the new 3D design will make their chip reach the performance levels of the best chips in the world.
Washington and Beijing are fighting for control over artificial intelligence. American sanctions have stopped Huawei from getting the tiny chips that power phones, cars, and computers.
The U.S. has also blocked China from buying the software and equipment needed to make these chips. Beijing has spent billions building its own supply chain.
Huawei says its chips will match 1.4-nanometer technology by 2031. Right now, China can only make 7-nanometer chips. TSMC in Taiwan makes chips for Nvidia. It already uses 2-nanometer technology and expects to start making 1.4-nanometer chips in 2028.
China breaks from Moore’s Law with new chip design
The company is also replacing Moore’s Law with Tau Scaling Law. Moore’s law has been employed in the industry by making the transistors smaller. The Tau Scaling Law focuses on the speed of data transfer of the stacked chips.
“The industry will face these problems sooner or later,” He told reporters after her speech. “We have confidence in this path because we have practice as proof.”
People in the Chinese tech industry call her the “chip queen.”
However, the company still has some hurdles. The big challenge is to keep stacked chips from overheating, which current tools can’t protect against.
Costs, power use, heat, and putting everything together are already major hurdles for Chinese technology, according to Brady Wang from Counterpoint Research.
Still on Weibo, Huawei’s breakthrough is being hyped as what DeepSeek offered. Lower costs for the American standard technology. Some are even saying that U.S sanctions have pushed China into “survival mode,” which needed faster innovation.
Huawei also bounced back in 2023 with new phones that had surprisingly good Chinese-made 5G chips. American restrictions are an actual hurdle.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went to China this month with President Donald Trump for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He told CNBC his company has “largely conceded” the Chinese chip market to Huawei. But he also said China is part of a $200 billion market for Nvidia’s new processors, as reported by Cryptopolitan previously.
American chipmakers bet big on new markets
AMD is putting $10 billion into building infrastructure. Nvidia is changing its business strategy to focus on enterprise customers instead of just big cloud companies. Both moves show American chipmakers are shifting away from China.
A new analysis from Anthropic warns that the next two years will decide whether democratic countries or authoritarian governments control the future of artificial intelligence.
Anthropic is an AI company. The report says democracies now lead in “compute,” which means the advanced chips needed to build the best AI systems. This lead exists because of American innovation and export controls.
But Chinese labs are staying close by, exploiting gaps in U.S. rules. They smuggle chips into China. They use American chips in data centers outside China. They run what Anthropic calls “distillation attacks.” These attacks involve creating fake accounts to copy American AI models. This steals decades of research and billions in investment.
Anthropic describes two possible futures for 2028. In the first, democracies close these loopholes and build a lead of 12 to 24 months in AI capabilities. In the second, China keeps finding ways around the rules and catches up. It then uses AI to expand surveillance and control.
The report says Firefox fixed more security problems last month using Anthropic’s new AI model than it did in all of 2025. A Chinese cybersecurity expert wrote that while China is “still sharpening our swords,” America has “suddenly mounted a fully automatic Gatling gun.”
Chinese state media said after Huawei’s announcement that competition should be “moderate and healthy.” It should help both sides advance. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Trump and Xi agreed to start government talks on AI during their recent meeting in Beijing.
Anthropic says the decisions policymakers make this year will determine who controls transformative AI technology. It will also determine whether it serves democratic values or enables authoritarianism worldwide.
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AMD expects first deliveries by year‑end
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has confirmed that its first shipments of next‑generation AI GPUs will start by the end of 2025, as the company gets set to re-enter the Chinese market by deploying top-tier cloud infrastructure.
Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, revealed that they were receiving chips for their operation from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).
However, she stated that when these chips are produced at TSMC’s US facilities, they become more expensive than those produced at its other facilities.
During an Artificial Intelligence event held in Washington, the CEO broke this down, pointing out that the same chips sold in Taiwan facilities are now sold between 5% and 20% more in US facilities.
Lisa Su acknowledges the booming demand for AI chips in the tech sector
The AMD CEO attended a crucial event that the All-In Podcast team hosted earlier. The event also held a consortium of tech executives and lawmakers, popularly called the Hill and Valley Forum.
Su acknowledged a booming demand for AI chips in the tech sector during the event. She further pointed out prominent figures such as Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, a founder of artificial intelligence startup xAI, who made significant investments in the AI sector.
Notably, AI accelerators are essential in this AI race for tech companies to solidify their position as global leaders in AI. They produce useful chips in developing and operating different AI models.
Consequently, AMD and Nvidia Corp. compete for these advantages encompassing AI accelerators in the markets.
Su commented on the accelerators’ market conditions. Based on her anticipation, following its impressive advantages and growing adoption across tech companies, its market will exceed $500 billion in just a few years.
“You can determine if we have done well by looking at what we accomplished in five years,” she added.
Huawei eyes the Middle East and Southeast Asia for its AI chips expansion
In the era of rapidly growing demand for AI chips in the tech sector, Huawei Technologies has devised a strategy to overtake Nvidia, a US-based chip maker, in the market. The company is extending its markets to the Middle East and Southeast Asia region with minor quantities of AI chips.
The Chinese tech company has taken an extra step to negotiate prices with its potential clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, and Thailand concerning its AI chips, Ascend 910B, people familiar with the situation who wished to remain anonymous due to the confidential nature of the situation said.
Nonetheless, a deal has not yet been struck, as a situation has developed. According to reliable sources, the UAE has demonstrated zero interest in Huawei’s AI chip offer, while Thailand’s agreement status remains unclear.
This did not stop the tech company from achieving its goal of becoming a leader in AI. Therefore, it had to develop another approach. Huawei decided to entice customers with its offer of remote accessibility to CloudMatrix 384, one of China’s AI systems that uses the company’s advanced chips in its operations. However, their limited supplies hinder them from being exported.
The primary factor behind Huawei’s growing interest in the Middle East is its surging AI chips market. Apart from Huawei, Nvidia is also attracted by this factor.
Neither Thailand’s nor Saudi’s government spokesperson replied to a comment request.
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Samsung’s operating profit plummets 56%, missing estimates
Samsung Electronics has reported a 56% year-on-year drop in operating profit for the second quarter of 2025, marking its first decline over a year.
The South Korean technology giant announced an operating profit of 4.6 trillion won, or about $3.3 billion, which was short of market expectations. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected a less severe drop of roughly 41%. Revenue for the quarter was 74 trillion won.
Several factors contributed to the earnings slump. The tech firm blamed one-time inventory costs and delays in completing shipments of its most advanced memory chips. These problems weighed on the performance of its semiconductor division, a crucial profit center for the company.
The company’s chip-making business has also been struggling for much of the past year, but the company said that operating losses are expected to be lower in the second half of the year. The increase is also anchored to a longer-term, gradual rebounding of global demand for semiconductors, including those for AI and high-performance computing.
The firm intends to publish a comprehensive full earnings report later this month, with all net income figures accompanied by detailed breakdowns by business division.
Samsung falls behind in AI chip race
Samsung’s hardest task at the moment is its underperforming business in the thriving artificial intelligence chip market. The company has been playing catch-up with its biggest domestic competitor, SK Hynix, which has a big lead over Samsung in producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.
These are very important chips for AI hardware systems, especially for companies like Nvidia, which control so much of the AI training and inference chips market. Samsung had expected to win major contracts from Nvidia for its latest chip — the 12-layer HBM3E — but hasn’t yet received final quality certification.
By contrast, SK Hynix announced a few days ago that it has begun the early shipping of 1.8V 12-Layer HBM4 samples to clients. This coup has elevated SK Hynix to Nvidia’s supplier of choice, giving it a massive head start in the competitive AI memory space. US vendor Micron Technology has also made inroads, sending out HBM samples in June.
Analysts say that postponing that date could have long-term repercussions. The Samsung note from Bernstein and analyst Mark Li cut Samsung’s projected HBM market share. Now, they expect SK Hynix to have approximately 57% of the HBM market in 2025, while Samsung has 27% and Micron 16%.
Samsung prepares to rebound in second half
Still, Samsung is hopeful. The company started shipping better HBM3E samples, nicknamed Superman, out to key customers, including Nvidia, hoping that production would finally commence if the final stages of certification were passed. The tech firm also said it plans to start mass production of HBM4 chips, the next generation of high-bandwidth memory, in the second half of 2025.
At its annual shareholders’ meeting in March, Samsung’s president of semiconductor business, Jun Young-hyun, admitted that the company failed to secure an early lead in the HBM market. He promised this would not happen with HBM4, which will feature prominently in Nvidia’s next-gen Rubin GPU architecture.
Although certification delays remain a concern, analysts have expressed optimism that Samsung could catch up. In a June report, Daishin Securities analyst Ryu Hyung-keun said that while Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E certification process has taken longer than expected, the company appears to be on track for a strong HBM4 rollout in the third quarter of 2025.
Samsung is betting large on this upturn. The company’s long-term strategy is to lessen dependence on consumer electronics and smartphones for sales and place greater emphasis on advanced memory chips, AI infrastructure, and foundry services. If it can overcome its challenges now and execute its HBM4 roadmap, it could be competitive again in the cutthroat contest for leadership in the AI chip market.
But for now, SK Hynix is unquestionably in the lead — a position Samsung is waging a fierce battle to take back.
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