Nvidia reboots China business after US green light
After writing off billions, Jensen Huang prompts Trump administration U-turn
Welcome back,
This week is all about Nvidia, after the US reversed its ban on the company’s China-designated H20 chip. Nvidia had been losing nearly $1 billion in monthly sales since the ban took effect in April, so the reversal is a big deal.
We don’t just focus on big companies here at ATR—this week we dive into Perplexity’s aggressive push into India, the struggles of India’s quick commerce startups beyond metro areas, and TikTok’s chaotic bid to take control of Tokopedia.
See in our next issue—have a great week,
Jon
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News in Focus
Nvidia gets back into China after Trump makes export u-turn
Last week was momentous for Nvidia.
2025 has been a turbulent year for Nvidia. It became the first $4 trillion company, but the political climate has been anything but stable. In April, the US banned sales of the H20, a China-specific AI chip Nvidia was forced to develop after earlier export controls blocked shipments of its standard products. Now, in a reversal, the Trump administration has lifted that ban, clearing the way for Nvidia to resume sales of the H20 in China.
Nvidia wrote down $4.5 billion in unsold H20 chips in May, and the company said export curbs caused it to lose out on $2.5 billion in sales in its last quarter. It looks like that stockpile will be put to use with Nvidia reportedly not planning to restart production. It is, however, developing a new China-specific chip for the future. Rival AMD is also resuming its chip shipments to China, too.
The numbers show this is a huge deal, and much has been written about the political work that CEO Jensen Huang has undertaken to help get the deal done.
The New York Times has a definitive read on Huang’s work to encourage Trump to take a u-turn. Huang insists all he ever did was brief the White House on the situation, as he sees it, but there’s been a significant shift.
The Trump administration initially saw depriving China of US tech as the answer to keep ahead. But Huang has been vocal about Huawei’s ability to plug the gap and catch up. He is said to have framed US tech as being core to the future of AI, for all—the same way that the US dollar underpins much of global finance.
“We’re not selling the most advanced chips,” Trump’s crypto and AI advisor David Sacks said. “But this strategy is smart and targeted.”
As always with Trump, there are other topics clouding this. Unblocking access to Nvidia tech is part of a resolution on rare earth minerals, which are critical to the production of tech and dominated by China, with 90% market share. Beijing played tough on export tariffs but now they are easing. China has also approved Synopsys’s $35 billion takeover of Ansys, which has been stuck.
Politics never stops—particularly when it comes to this president. For now at least, Nvidia can be more optimistic about the situation.
Microsoft caught using China-based engineers on US defence projects
Microsoft found itself in hot water after a Pro Publica report found that the company had been using China-based engineers as part of a team that managed US Defense Department cloud systems.
Overseas workers are supervised by US-based employees to provide oversight. But it emerged that many of these so-called ‘digital escorts’ were under-qualified and lacked the technical skills to properly scrutinise and manage the workers.
Following the understandable reaction, Microsoft announced an end to using China-based engineers working on military projects. The damage, however, could impact other contracts—particularly as the Pentagon has launched a review.
Perplexity makes aggressive push to own AI in India
Perplexity is going against the grain of most AI startups by targeting the mass market in India after it partnered with Airtel. The deal will see the telco’s 360 million users get free access to Perplexity’s $200-a-year premium service.
We’ve written before about reports that ChatGPT considered a special discounted offer for India in partnership with Jio—India has always been price sensitive but there’s a market of 800-900 million estimated internet users and more than 1 billion telecom subscribers.
We’ve seen similar strategies play out before with streaming and even media, but this will be a first for AI consumer services. India is already the largest market for ChatGPT activity, according to app metrics from Sensor Tower pulled by India Dispatch.
India 13.5%
US 8.9%
Indonesia 5.7%
Brazil 5.4%
Egypt 3.9%
Exact numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly as this just applies to mobile, but the evidence is clear enough to warrant a deeper push into India.
Huawei returns to summit as China’s top phone seller after 4 year gap
They did it. Huawei returned to the top of China’s mobile phone sales after a four year absence.
The Chinese tech giant clocked 18.1% of the market in Q2 2025, despite shipments dropping 3.4% to 12.5 million.
The change is a reflection of Huawei’s continued rise, as well as a relative decline from Apple and mixed results for challenger brands led by Xiaomi. Huawei is going at it on all fronts—including newer focuses like AI chips—but it is undoubtedly a big brand win in one of its core business lines.
China
ByteDance is developing lightweight mixed reality glasses, following Meta’s lead with a similar device due in 2027, according to The Information link
Blackstone has exited a consortium bidding for TikTok’s US operations amid growing uncertainty and repeated delays, a source told Reuters link
TikTok is seeking security talks with Canada to avoid a possible ban on its operations link
China’s top market regulator has summoned Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com over the delivery price war that’s raged in recent months link
Cursor has blocked China-based users from accessing US models like Claude-4-Sonnet and Gemini-2.5-Pro. Link
China’s top VC firms are raising over $2B in new funds, signaling renewed global investor interest in sectors from AI to consumer goods—at least six firms are launching dollar-denominated funds to attract overseas capital including LightSpeed, Monolith and BA Capital link
China’s early patriotic hackers, once known as “honkers,” have evolved into the backbone of the country’s elite cyber-espionage force, according to a new report tracing their rise from online activists to state-backed spies link
Google sued 25 unnamed individuals in China, accusing them of hacking over 10M devices globally to create the BadBox 2.0 botnet used for cybercrime and fraud link
Security researchers say Chinese authorities are using a new malware tool, Massistant, to extract data from seized phones, including texts from apps like Signal, photos, location history, audio, and contacts link
Chinese state-backed hacking group Salt Typhoon has continued to target telecom networks globally, compromising devices linked to seven providers since February, according to a report by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future—apparent victims include Comcast, South Africa’s MTN Group, and South Korea’s LG Uplus: the breaches appear to affect customer devices, not the telecom firms themselves link
The US FCC is set to vote next month on a rule banning companies using certain Chinese tech from building submarine cables that land in the US link
Uber and Baidu are teaming up to launch robotaxis outside the US and China, starting in Asia and the Middle East later this year link
China will now require a government license to transfer eight key EV battery technologies abroad, tightening control over a sector it dominates—the move could hinder Chinese automakers from expanding overseas, especially in Europe link
China is struggling to advance its chip lithography capabilities, a key barrier to its push for tech self-sufficiency in the trade war with the US link
A hit game in China, Revenge on Gold Diggers, has tapped into male resentment, reflecting growing misogyny and a sense of economic victimhood among men link
China is leading the way on what is (quite literally) a very cool initiative:
To fuel its AI and cloud ambitions, China is rapidly building data centers—but these power-hungry facilities consume massive amounts of energy and water, creating competition with critical human needs like agriculture and drinking water. Many are located in dry regions to avoid humidity damage, including Arizona and the Middle East. To ease water concerns, China has begun building a wind-powered underwater data center off the coast of Shanghai.
India
A great look at why India’s quick-commerce boom is slowing as expansion into smaller cities hits a wall—lower order volumes, higher delivery costs, and weak unit economics are forcing players like Blinkit and Zepto to pause or rethink growth—the focus is shifting to boosting average order value through bulk purchases and larger-format dark stores, but that requires more burn before profitability improves link
Meanwhile: Zepto Cafe, the 10-minute food delivery arm of quick commerce firm Zepto, is scaling down operations as it battles supply chain issues and a shortage of trained kitchen staff link
But Reliance Retail’s online fashion and lifestyle platform AJIO has launched a four-hour delivery service link
Startup QpiAI, which integrates AI and quantum computing for enterprise, raised $32M co-led by the Indian government and Avataar Ventures at a valuation of $162M link
Sarvam AI will open source its AI models after it received the highest possible subsidy under the IndiaAI Mission link
Tesla finally entered the Indian market after a decade of false starts and broken promises link
India is looking to build on Taiwanese tech suppliers' growing presence in the country to forge closer economic ties with Asia's key tech hub link
CoinDCX, one of India’s largest crypto exchanges, lost $44 million in a “sophisticated server breach”. No customer funds were affected, and the company will cover the loss. The attack occurred early Saturday but was disclosed 17 hours later after blockchain analyst ZachXBT flagged it. link
China’s informal trade restrictions threaten India’s $32 bn smartphone export target, warns industry body link
AceVector, the parent of once-mighty e-commerce platform Snapdeal, has filed confidential papers for an IPO link
Southeast Asia
Singapore accuses Chinese state-backed hackers of attacking critical infrastructure networks link
Singapore’s Antler just got a second unicorn, this time AI startup Lovable in Europe—now it is doubling down on the continent with a new initiative offering up to €500,000 for so-called outlier founders link
ByteDance’s takeover of Tokopedia was meant to sidestep Indonesia’s e-commerce restrictions—but nearly a year on, the merger is sowing chaos link
Malaysia now requires permits for exporting high-performance US AI chips, signaling efforts to prevent diversion to countries like China link
SpaceX is expected to launch Starlink satellite internet services in Vietnam before the end of the year link
Thai police raided seven properties tied to Cambodian tycoon Kok An, who is accused of involvement in online scam operations link
A consortium led by Singtel and Japan’s NEC will build an 8,900-km subsea cable linking Singapore and Japan to meet rising AI and cloud data demands link
China’s WeRide has launched Southeast Asia’s first fully driverless bus service in Singapore, with no safety officer onboard—the Robobus runs a 1.2km loop every 12 minutes on Sentosa island, linking three hotels and a mall link
South Korea
Chip design firm Semifive filed for an IPO on South Korea’s Kosdaq to support its growth amid rising demand for AI-related semiconductors—the 6-year-old company raised $170M to date and it claims to have reached $80M in annual revenue: it’s not yet clear how much the listing will raise link
LG Electronics is making a push into the AI memory chip business, developing hybrid bonders used to manufacture high-bandwidth memory chips that work alongside processors from companies like Nvidia, according to a local media report link
LG Group launched Exaone 4.0, its latest AI model and South Korea’s first hybrid-reasoning system, combining a large language model with a hypothesis-testing engine link
South Korea is alarmed by potential US tariffs on semiconductors, a key export sector, Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said Monday link
The former leaders of Unknown Worlds allege that South Korea’s Krafton fired them after they shared strong revenue forecasts that would’ve triggered a $250M bonus, according to a newly unsealed lawsuit link
South Korea’s top court has upheld a not guilty verdict for Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee, clearing him of accounting fraud and stock manipulation tied to a 2015 $8B merger link
Hong Kong
Chinese AI startup MiniMax confidentially filed for a Hong Kong IPO that could happen this year and raise up to $637M at a $4B valuation link
Biel could be the latest Apple supplier to go public in Hong Kong, with reports suggesting it could revive plans for a listing—Apple partner Lens just raised $600M and Luxshare, which helps make AirPods, is said to be close behind link
Taiwan
Times are good for TSMC, which reported a 60.7% jump in Q2 net profit to $13.5B—a record high driven by soaring AI chip demand link
But the company will remain prudent on spending due to macro uncertainties, according to its CFO link
TSMC is accelerating construction of its second and third Arizona plants by several quarters to meet strong US demand for smartphone and AI chips link
Rest of Asia
Japan’s Rapidus has prototyped a 2nm chip using gate-all-around technology, a key step in its government-backed push to catch up in advanced semiconductors link
A huge $1.5B hack on Bybit in February has meant that hackers stole over $2.1B in crypto in the first half of the year, surpassing all of 2024’s losses, according to Chainalysis—we are on track for a record-shattering $4B in crypto thefts this year, the report warned link
A key Pakistani Senate committee has urged the central bank to force all debit and credit cards to be issued via its domestic payment scheme, PayPak link
Nepal has ordered its telecommunication service providers to block messaging app Telegram for allegedly fueling online fraud and money laundering link