Robyn Mak

When U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, he was probably not thinking of corporate governance battles in South Korea. Nevertheless, his administration's decision to build a new zinc refinery stateside has dragged it into one of the country's messiest takeover feuds. The saga is another reminder of the pitfalls of state meddling in private firms.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang warns inadequate energy and infrastructure may cost the US its tech advantage. That has some logic. But the People's Republic faces chip curbs and price wars. At best, abundant electricity can buy time to overcome the woes bedeviling the $142 bln industry.

Large language model upstarts Zhipu and MiniMax raised $1 bln in Hong Kong IPOs. Both are bleeding on R&D costs. With venture funding in China squeezed by Sino-American tensions, they are tapping public markets unusually early and piling hard-to-compute risks on investors.

Boss ‌Eddie Wu's five-year AI revenue target requires the $298 bln Chinese giant to grow faster, ​and likely spend more. With no ​details on the margin impact and earnings at ⁠its core commerce business dismal, no ​wonder shares slid 7%. Winning back ​investor faith will be long slog.

Unitree ‌sold 5,500 humanoid robots last year. Tesla sold none. Securing official approval for a ​rare Shanghai IPO will highlight the $6 ​bln Hangzhou firm's strategic role in ⁠Beijing's automation push. Yet breakneck tech ​advances threaten its impressive lead and rich ​margins.

Results ​due Thursday will confirm the $1.7 trln group's dominance ‌of cutting-edge AI processors. But Japan’s $16 bln bet on homegrown Rapidus and Elon Musk’s Intel tie-up show unease with the ​Taiwanese group's rule. Though a challenge will take ​years, pretenders are on the move.

Alibaba, $40 bln MiniMax and ⁠others flooded the ​market with cheap ​access to models that power agents and ​apps, turning artificial ​intelligence into a commodity. ‌But ⁠without new US chips, Chinese labs will lag Western ​ones. ​It's ⁠one industry where low ​prices might not ​be ⁠decisive.

The low valuation suggests founder Liang Wenfeng still favours innovation ​over profits. A $300 mln ​fundraise should help retain talent, but whether ⁠DeepSeek can keep up with ​US rivals OpenAI and Anthropic will ​be better determined by how the Chinese AI lab's next model performs.

Businesses ​may spend $680 bln on ⁠models, agents ​and more next ​year. Unlike predictable software subscriptions, pay-as-you-go AI bills ​are volatile. ​A correction looms for OpenAI ‌and ⁠its peers. But cloud computing shows the market ​can still ​grow ⁠even as CFOs try ​to rein in ​costs.

At two mega tech ‌confabs this week leaders from Nvidia and Intel lavished praise on the island’s role in global supply chains. As AI moves from the cloud to local devices, Taiwan's importance will grow. And with GDP set to expand 10%, Taipei also can boost spending on defense.