Samsung and SK hynix are generating extraordinary profits, yet investors are questioning the durability of the AI spending boom. Ahead of their October earnings updates, South Korea’s chipmakers face a harder test: turning industrial indispensability into lasting financial resilience.
China wants more capital to finance AI, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing — but also less speculation and stronger market discipline. Through Wu Qing, Altair Media examines whether “patient capital” can be designed without weakening the market’s ability to price risk.
Temasek is state-owned, but it is not a ministry. Through Dilhan Pillay, Altair Media examines how Singapore combines public ownership, commercial discipline and patient capital to invest across AI, infrastructure, energy and long-term economic transitions.
AI is pushing semiconductor manufacturing in two directions at once: transistors are shrinking, while the infrastructure needed to produce advanced chips is becoming larger, more complex and increasingly dependent on coordination across Europe and East Asia.
As nations compete to protect strategic knowledge, a parallel race is accelerating across the world. The future of technological leadership may depend not only on safeguarding research, but on attracting and retaining the scientists who create tomorrow’s breakthroughs.
Why does China invest hundreds of billions in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, batteries and high-speed rail? The answer lies in how Beijing views economic development. Many technologies are not seen as commercial sectors alone, but as strategic infrastructure that underpins future national power.
Europe’s technology strategy is not about isolation. It is about resilience through partnership. As Europe builds its capabilities in semiconductors, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence, cooperation with India on talent, digital infrastructure and innovation could help shape the next era of global technology.
Japan is often portrayed as the world’s robotics leader. Yet behind the futuristic image lies a more practical reality. As demographic decline accelerates and labour shortages deepen, automation is becoming less a choice than a necessity — raising new questions about the future relationship between technology and human care.
The internet is no longer confined to apps, platforms and screens. Across Asia, sensors, embedded systems and connected infrastructure are transforming factories, cities and energy networks into realtime computational environments — reshaping how societies operate, govern and compete.
Huawei’s 2025 results reveal not a comeback but a transformation: from global tech vendor to architect of a sovereign digital ecosystem. Under pressure from sanctions, it has built parallel systems in chips, AI, and mobility—reshaping the geopolitical technology order.
