UAE Commits $1.4T To US Chips

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Economy, Tech Trade, TikTok, Anthropic, HHS Cuts

• Companies to watch: Anduril, BYD, Mercury, Island, Nebius, Rivian Also

• Feature: Chinese AI Independence Creeps Closer

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Economy — Investors went risk-on Thursday, reducing exposure to risky assets after Trump enacts a 25% tariff on imported cars. Nasdaq fell 2% and the MSCI World index shed 1% for their biggest declines in two weeks.

Tech Tensions Rise — The U.S. blacklisted over 50 Chinese tech firms to limit their access to advanced AI, citing national security.

TikTok Deadline Looms — Trump considers reducing China tariffs to aid ByteDance in selling TikTok by April 5, prioritizing national security.

Anthropic Wins — A U.S. court sided with Anthropic, allowing the use of copyrighted lyrics to train AI despite record labels' lawsuit, citing no evidence of harm.

HHS Job Cuts — The US Department of Health and Human Services will cut 10,000 jobs under Health Secretary RFK Jr., impacting the FDA and CDC.

UAE Investment Surge — The UAE commits $1.4 trillion over the next decade to boost US investments in AI, semiconductors, and energy, building on over $1 trillion already invested.

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COMPANIES TO WATCH

OpenAI — Nearing a $40B funding round led by SoftBank, with initial $7.5B and a $22.5B tranche, potentially valuing the company at $300B.

Anduril — Demand for secondary shares surges following a $642M contract with the US Marine Corps and valuation rising to $36.3B. The company restricts stock transactions, fueling market frenzy.

BYD — Reported $107B in 2024 revenue, surpassing Tesla as an EV market leader. Growth driven by new battery tech enabling rapid charging, reshaping the automotive industry.

Mercury — Raised $300M in a Sequoia-led Series C, doubling valuation to $3.5B. Reported $500M revenue for 2024; plans workforce expansion, consumer banking launch, and acquisitions.

Island — Raised $250M in Series E, boosting valuation to $4.85B. The enterprise browser startup now has 450 customers, including Mattress Firm and Fiverr.

Nebius — Cloud compute provider Nebius may be a better long-term investment than CoreWeave with no debt and a diversified model beyond GPU deployment.

Rivian Also — The spin-out micromobility startup emerged with $105M from Eclipse Ventures to produce affordable EVs, unveiling a bike-like product in the US and Europe later this year.

See our full list of the companies to watch for this week here

THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH
Chinese Semiconductor Independence Creeps Closer

This week, global semiconductor markets and AI ecosystems have again experienced seismic shifts. Geopolitical tensions are on the rise with new Trump Tariffs and blacklisting of more Chinese tech companies. Alongside that, we had news of a massive $1T strategic investment in US chipmaking by the UAE, and a significant new chip lithography breakthrough in China that changes the game for Chinese tech independence. Couple this with a top AI-powered fund warning about an overheated US AI stock market, and it’s a case of significant risks and opportunities right now. Here's what you need to know to adjust your 2025 strategies accordingly.

AI Investment Warning Amid China-US Tensions

A top-ranked AI-driven investment fund—Daniel Mahr's Federated Hermes fund—recently issued a stark warning about inflated valuations and speculative risks in AI stocks, including NVIDIA, despite recent price drops.

This alert comes as geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China escalate, with new Trump tariffs and new blacklisted companies affecting trade. This also puts pressures big tech companies heavily dependent on AI-driven growth narratives.

China is fighting back. It passed new energy efficiency rules that effectively block Nvidia sales by discouraging Chinese tech firms from purchasing its chips, which do not meet compliance standards. Nvidia reportedly faces a potential $17 billion revenue risk from reduced Chinese market access. It is now hustling to adjust its products to meet these new efficiency norms (and lobbying the US government.)

Some reports suggest China's massive new AI-focused data centers remain partly underutilized, hinting at a mismatch between projected AI growth and actual implementation. Accelerating this trend are open-source AI models like DeepSeek and Alibaba's new Qwen2.5-Omni multimodal AI model, efficient enough to run on smartphones. Could similar underutilization soon occur in the US? Or is it just that China is building faster than the compute is rising? If so, it is likely future-proofing.

Beijing Blacklist Grows

With the U.S. blacklisting an additional 50 Chinese technology companies, aimed at curbing Beijing’s advanced AI chip capabilities, the disruption to global AI supply chains escalates risks for investors in AI stocks. The disruption does impact China in the short-term, with Huawei-spinout firm H3C warning of potential shortages of Nvidia's H20 AI chips, highlighting vulnerabilities on both sides.

The US Own-Goal on Chinese Tech Independence

Paradoxically, U.S. sanctions have accelerated Chinese innovation rather than hindered it. Chinese tech firms, notably Alibaba, are pivoting away from Western semiconductor dependency, achieving significant cost reductions using domestically produced AI chips. Ant Group claims it used Chinese chips made by Alibaba and Huawei to create methods that cut AI training costs by 20%. Huawei goes even further with its new Kirin X90 CPU and proprietary HarmonyOS, marking a clear departure from Intel and Windows. This is an example of the own-goal effect of US policy, as China also accelerates its move off Western operating systems in response.

SiCarrier's Breakthrough Changes The Game

Further intensifying the situation, Huawei-linked semiconductor equipment firm SiCarrier announced a major breakthrough, aiming to build a comprehensive domestic chipmaking ecosystem. This directly challenges Western dominance in lithography—currently controlled largely by EU-based ASML—reducing China's reliance on foreign technology and weakening U.S. trade leverage. This breakthrough could reshape global semiconductor dynamics, especially combined with China's push toward energy independence through strategic global energy partnerships.

TSMC’s US Investment—Not a Silver Bullet

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also cautioned this week that TSMC’s significant $100 billion U.S. investment alone won't shift global semiconductor leadership away from Asia. Comprehensive ecosystems—including talent, R&D, and mature supply chains—remain critical. Investors and companies should temper expectations, recognizing leadership requires multifaceted strategic investments.

UAE's $1 Trillion Bet on US AI and Semiconductors

It’s not all grim news for the U.S. though, the UAE just committed a substantial $1 trillion investment in domestic AI, semiconductor, and energy sectors, aiming to diversify global economic and geopolitical dependencies. Simultaneously, Apple's recent $1 billion Nvidia system order to revamp Siri reflects strategic domestic investments capable of offsetting reduced Chinese market access.

Company to Watch: Nebius

Emerging as a strong challenger in AI and cloud computing hardware, Nebius offers a compelling alternative to traditional giants like Nvidia and Coreweave. Praised recently by The Information for its robust financial health and diversified business model, Nebius specializes in high-performance, flexible cloud solutions optimized for AI workloads. Also, it is debt-free, unlike the highly leveraged rival Coreweave.

Key Takeaways:

The evolving geopolitical landscape significantly affects tech markets in often unpredictable ways. Heightened China-US trade and technology tensions, emerging Chinese self-reliance in critical technology sectors, and substantial US investments will continue to shape market dynamics throughout 2025.

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BUZZY TOOLS

Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

OpenAI — GPT-4o model enhances with multimodal, photorealistic outputs.

Qwen2.5-Omni — New multimodal AI for real-time text, image, audio, and video processing.

Perplexity AI — New answer tabs for filtering search results by format, hotel bookings.

Otter — Voice-responsive AI agents for boosting sales and real-time assistance.

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BUZZY TECH

The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Gene-Edited Pig Livers — Successful transplants potentially solve organ shortages.

Quantum Randomness — Certified random numbers boost cryptography, security.

Stellarator Fusion Power — Infinity Two plant aims for 350 MWe by mid-2030s.

AI Model Twins — H&M to use AI twins in ads, ensuring model rights and pay.

Uranium Battery — World's 1st uranium battery could revolutionize waste mgmt.

Language Model Circuit Tracing — Anthropic reveals inner workings of models.

CRYPTO WATCH

GameStop — Plans to invest corporate cash in Bitcoin with no set purchase limit, holding $4.8B in cash. Reports $131.3M net income for Q4 amid crypto volatility.

Fidelity Investments — Testing a dollar-pegged stablecoin amid crypto interest, but has no immediate launch plans. The stablecoin market is valued at $239B, led by Tether.

IRS Crypto Tax Rule Repeal — The U.S. Senate voted 70-28 to repeal an IRS crypto tax rule, criticized for privacy issues, with President Trump expected to sign it, marking a significant win for the crypto industry.

SPACE_RACE

—NASA Changes_Trump admin reshapes agency with cuts and SpaceX focus

—Firefly & Blue Origin_Partner to explore lunar volcanic domes with rover mission

—Lunar Mining Bot_China unveils six-legged robot for space resource extraction.

MEMETICS

OpenAI opened up image editing and “Ghibli” as a prompt term is banned over copyright infringement within 24 hours. That was quick.

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