#semiconductors

#semiconductors

This summer, Steve Witkoff, President Trump's Middle East envoy, paid a visit to the coast of Sardinia, a stretch of the Mediterranean Sea crowded with super yachts. On one of those extravagant vessels, Mr. Witkoff sat down with a member of the ultrarich ruling family of the United Arab Emirates. He was meeting Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a trim figure in dark glasses who controls $1.5 trillion of the Emiratis' sovereign wealth.

Perhaps as a foretaste of seasonal volatility stocks fell Friday as US tech - specifically chipmakers - wobbled, with the Nasdaq down more than 1% for the session. Nvidia was down more than 3% to extend its weakness in the wake of earnings. This seemed to weigh on Asian equities on Monday, but Hong Kong rallied 2% on a huge surge in Alibaba shares, which jumped 15% on its AI revenue growth.

It's been a banner year, so far, for cryptocurrency enthusiasts worldwide. Bitcoin ( CRYPTO:BTC), the world's most popular cryptocurrency, touched an all-time high of $124,457.12 in mid-August before pulling back to around $110,000 in the month's final trading days. With that, Bitcoin was up by 20% (give or take a few percentage points) at the end of August. That's an impressive year-to-date performance, and some commentators are bracing for even higher Bitcoin prices.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed that the US government is in discussions to take an equity stake in Intel Corp., transforming grants from the Chips and Science Act into stock. This does not grant the federal government governance or voting rights, but could position it as Intel's largest shareholder. He criticized the previous administration's approach for providing subsidies without accountability, emphasizing the change to securing taxpayer interests through equity stakes instead.

The UK has a "niche and highly specialised chip industry" that cannot compete directly with larger global players, signaling a need for strategic investment in design rather than manufacturing.

Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technology Co. filed a lawsuit against Applied Materials, claiming trade secret theft related to plasma source technologies used in wafer surface treatment.

US authorities have secretly placed location tracking devices in specific shipments of advanced AI chips to enforce export restrictions on semiconductors to China.

This arrangement comes less than two months after Washington eased certain export restrictions on semiconductors to the Chinese market. The deal covers Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 chips, both now prerequisites for securing export licenses, allowing the companies to access a market that remains lucrative despite the new 15% US curb.

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15% of their revenues from chip sales in China as a prerequisite for export licenses.

"We're going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors," Trump said, as quoted by CNBC. "But the good news for companies like Apple is if you're building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge."

President Trump announced a 100 percent import tariff on chips but companies manufacturing in the US can qualify for exemptions. Companies not fulfilling production promises will face full tariffs retroactively.