Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Hello from sunny California. Is it just me or have the first two months of 2025 seemed both incredibly long but also to have passed by in the blink of an eye? The tech world has gone through so much upheaval in just a short few weeks, but if I had to summarise the year so far into two keywords, it would be: DeepSeek and Trump.The Chinese AI developer DeepSeek kick-started worldwide debates around open-source AI and spending on AI infrastructure. The company’s low-cost model has been quickly adopted across China’s public and private sectors, and perhaps just as quickly been labelled a “national security risk” and shunned in the west.While US tech companies might have to recalculate how much they should spend on AI and how much they will make from it because of DeepSeek, their CEOs don’t seem to hold any grudges against the start-up.On Wednesday, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang joined a long list of executives praising DeepSeek’s innovation, saying “nearly every AI developer” is using the open-sourced DeepSeek R1 model to improve model reasoning. This, he argues, will not slow demand for his company’s AI chips but actually drive sales further.Meanwhile, Trump started his second term as president with a series of tariffs and negotiations with world leaders that sent shockwaves through global trade and tech supply chains. He is also gunning for the Chips Act and other Biden-era policies, including export controls, leaving tech companies waiting nervously for any changes.As one semiconductor executive told me, not getting the Chips Act funding is the least of their concerns right now. The real question on everyone’s mind is: What else does Trump want?Deal or no deal?As busy as Trump seems to be planning his next tariff target (the EU being the latest on the list), he still finds time for social media, and not just Truth Social, but also the Gen Z favourite platform TikTok.The president has tasked vice-president JD Vance and national security adviser Mike Waltz with leading discussions with TikTok on how to resolve the sell-or-ban situation. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance are still against selling the app outright but are now open to the idea of US backers owning a larger share of it, Nikkei Asia’s Yifan Yu and Cissy Zhou report.No deal is finalised and key issues, such as ownership of TikTok’s algorithms, are unresolved. But Beijing has also appeared to soften its stance and would not object to American investors owning more of the app, as long as the algorithms remain in ByteDance’s control.TikTok still has a long way to go to win the trust of Washington. Meanwhile, the company is taking the axe to its trust and safety team, with lay-offs in the US, Europe and Asia as it steps up efforts in AI deployment.Yielding resultsHuawei has significantly improved the amount of advanced artificial intelligence chips it can produce, in a key breakthrough that supports China’s push to create its own advanced semiconductors, write the Financial Times’ Zijing Wu and Eleanor Olcott.The Chinese conglomerate has increased the “yield” — the percentage of functional chips made on its production line — of its latest 910C AI chips to close to 40 per cent, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. That represents a doubling from 20 per cent about a year ago.The improved yield means that Huawei’s production line for Ascend chips has become profitable for the first time, according to the people. The company has a goal to further improve yields to 60 per cent, in line with the industry standard for similar chips.The advance is a step forward for China’s hopes to build computing infrastructure that can support its burgeoning AI industry, despite US export controls designed to hamper the country’s ability to develop sensitive technologies.Still, Nvidia is expected to sell more AI chips in China than Huawei, despite the US company only being able to sell Chinese customers its H20 chips, a less powerful version of its H100 chips designed to adhere to Washington export controls.Huawei declined to comment.Old chips, new playersA “China shock” is coming for the chip industry as the country’s aggressive expansion in older semiconductors and niche substrates drives prices down to previously unthinkable levels.The country’s share in the mature chip market is rapidly rising as China ramps up efforts to build a domestic supply chain in areas not yet targeted by US export curbs, Nikkei Asia’s Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li write. Its mature chip capacity will account for about 28 per cent of the global market in 2025, according to IDC estimates, and industry association SEMI says that figure could grow to 39 per cent by 2027.One analyst warned that the chip industry must brace for the same kind of “China shock” that hit the solar power industry when China began mass-producing panels.The draw of AIChinese animated film Ne Zha 2 has taken the global box office by storm, beating Inside Out 2 to become the highest-grossing animated film in history. Thanks to AI, you might hear a lot more about 2D entertainment from China in the years to come.One-year-old Chinese start-up Miguo AI is planning to release 100 comic and cartoon titles this year, using artificial intelligence to create images faster and more cheaply, Nikkei Asia’s Wataru Suzuki reports.“If one day of work creating a weekly comic took 14 people to complete, we can do the same amount of work with 5.5 people,” Chen Dazhi, chief operating officer of Miguo, said in an interview.While AI can help bring costs down, it is still unclear how they will be received by fans. A 2022 survey found that more respondents held negative views about manga generated by AI than those who were positive about it, and that 43 per cent were not willing to pay for AI manga.Suggested readsIndonesia to lift iPhone 16 sales ban in win for Apple (Nikkei Asia)China struggles to master high-end machine tools (FT)China’s superpower of scaling will spur DeepSeek’s competitive threat (FT)Tokyo Electron could dial up hiring spree amid AI boom, president says (Nikkei Asia)China taps tech talent to boost AI data centre boom (FT)Indonesia launches Danantara sovereign wealth fund: 5 things to know (Nikkei Asia)Japan’s Daikin to take its Indian business model to Africa (Nikkei Asia)Alibaba shares jump 14 per cent after pledge to invest ‘aggressively’ in AI (FT)Japan warns over threat from China’s chip material export controls (FT)Taiwan’s Yageo ready to buy Shibaura Electronics without consent: chair (Nikkei Asia)
