When Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Washington last week, artificial intelligence was among the issues dividing their countries. Days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had agreed to establish a formal AI dialogue, including an incident line, though its protocols had yet to be worked out. The summit produced no […]

The post What does it mean to win the AI race? appeared first on Asia Times.

Two races were held at Fuji Speedway last weekend: the six-hour FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Race Against Dementia led by champion driver Sir Jackie Stewart OBE, who returned to Japan 60 years after winning the Fuji 200 race to campaign for his charitable foundation and wave the green flag at the start […]

The post Sir Jackie Stewart brings his race against dementia to Japan appeared first on Asia Times.

TOKYO — Anyone betting that inflation risks are fading should look at the US Treasury market. The sharp selloff in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) suggests the world’s biggest bond market is growing less convinced that price pressures are contained. Investors are rethinking the inflation outlook, with implications for Federal Reserve policy, real rates and stock […]

The post Bond markets aren’t buying the inflation-is-tamed fairy tale appeared first on Asia Times.

For years, relations between Washington and Beijing seemed stuck on an escalation treadmill. Every quarter brought new semiconductor restrictions, naval jockeying in the South China Sea or retaliatory tariffs, locking the world’s two preeminent powers in an apparently irreversible downward spiral. Observers came to view every exchange as a prelude to confrontation, with diplomacy treated […]

The post Trump-Xi summit’s real test will come in the months ahead appeared first on Asia Times.

When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to a mutual defense pact in August, it was principally seen as a political commitment. The “Mecca alliance,” as it was dubbed, stipulated that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all three, accompanied by deeper military cooperation. That pact is no longer […]

The post Baptism of Houthi fire for Mecca mutual defense pact appeared first on Asia Times.

The prevailing criticism of the US-China summit in Washington is that it amounted to little more than diplomatic pageantry. But one outcome deserves recognition: it may have helped keep alive the prospect of renewed US-North Korea dialogue. North Korea, after all, was among the global security issues discussed by the two leaders. Details of those […]

The post A spark for dialogue toward halting North Korea’s nuclear buildup appeared first on Asia Times.

When governments talk about reducing dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, the discussion usually turns to pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. For Asian importers, that is only part of the story. The physical bottleneck is in the Persian Gulf, but much of the economic exposure sits thousands of kilometers to the […]

The post Asia can’t just pipeline its way around Hormuz appeared first on Asia Times.

Recent warnings from American AI leaders have created the impression that the world is only beginning to confront the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence. Dario Amodei, chief executive of tech company Anthropic, has called for governments to intervene to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models. His proposal begins with independent evaluators embedded inside […]

The post As US tech leaders call for rules on AI, China already has them appeared first on Asia Times.

The last of the US-led coalition forces are leaving Iraq. It’s a significant bonus for Iran. The withdrawal date, September 30, was also the date by which Baghdad had pledged to bring numerous powerful Iran-backed militias under state control. But this deadline looks certain to be missed. This effectively means that, at a moment when […]

The post Final US military withdrawal from Iraq is a major bonus for Iran appeared first on Asia Times.

They’ve been shown to raise electricity bills, pollute drinking water, do little to boost local employment while threatening millions of jobs in a variety of industries, and top executives have warned that the technology they support could wipe out all of humanity by the end of the decade. But rather than take widespread public opposition to artificial intelligence data centers at face value, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he had […]

The post US House speaker sees AI data center worries as ‘Chinese psyop’ appeared first on Asia Times.

For more than three decades, the Bangladeshi political left has maintained an unyielding stance on natural resources like gas, coal, and minerals, insisting that state entities must develop them exclusively. Foreign energy companies are viewed with deep suspicion, while production-sharing contracts are routinely condemned as vehicles designed to siphon national wealth to foreign multinationals. Coal […]

The post Bangladesh energy crisis calls for pragmatism, not political purity appeared first on Asia Times.

Two American charities recently announced a new fund to fight forest fires. They want to raise US$100 million to help countries find fires faster and put them out sooner. But the fund, announced at the UN General Assembly, is limited to South America, home to the Amazon rainforest. Southeast Asia is left out, and so […]

The post Indonesia should have a seat at new forest firefighting fund appeared first on Asia Times.

In a recent phone call, Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Whether a request or a demand, this appears, certainly at first glance, fundamentally different from the Biden administration’s policy of restricting the use of US long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia. The US president has justified […]

The post Trump’s bid to stop Ukraine’s Russia strikes a strategic disconnect appeared first on Asia Times.

Recent disclosures about China’s purported in-orbit servicing operations have intensified a quiet revolution in space, where the mechanics of satellite sustainment are swiftly becoming the frontline of great-power counterspace rivalry. This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese researchers claim the country carried out a pioneering in-orbit refueling operation on a high-altitude […]

The post China’s disputed satellite refueling heralds new space war era appeared first on Asia Times.

Volkswagen has spent years trying to build a European battery business strong enough to carry its electric-car ambitions. Its latest deal pulls a Chinese partner deeper into that effort. On September 28, Germany’s Volkswagen and China’s Gotion High-Tech agreed to deepen a partnership that began in 2020. Gotion plans to invest about 1.1 billion euros […]

The post Volkswagen-Gotion deal shows hard limits of China de-risking appeared first on Asia Times.

A note before we start. What follows works through the innovation loops of the semiconductor world, sub-sector by sub-sector, with eight diagrams along the way. They are complicated, despite a fair amount of effort to make them otherwise. Anyone who wants to skip the loops and the slides can find the conclusions in two places: […]

The post The real loops of innovation appeared first on Asia Times.

At the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed that China take the lead in establishing a BRICS AI open-source community. His proposal envisaged cooperation in developing and applying large language models, conducting AI training and seminars and constructing a more open AI ecosystem. He also called for a broader international […]

The post In BRICS open-source AI, China and India will make a good team appeared first on Asia Times.

The British Police say that the five men arrested in connection with a suspected bomb plot targeting RAF Fairford are all British nationals. Nothing has yet been said officially about who was behind the plot. The risk to US assets and personnel in the UK remains extremely high. United Kingdom police are releasing the five […]

The post RAF Fairford big-scale attack try represents serious threat to US appeared first on Asia Times.

Beijing may let its technology giants buy more Nvidia high-end chips, giving the US chip designer a fresh foothold in China and keeping Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) developers tied to its software after months of stalled trade. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has asked major domestic companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent, […]

The post After Trump-Xi summit, Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 gains export prospects appeared first on Asia Times.

Less than two months after his government hosted the NATO summit — which was framed as proof of Turkey’s pivotal role in transatlantic security — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed full Turkish membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an entity that has been described as being anti-NATO or a “rogue NATO.” The apparent contradiction […]

The post Erdogan playing East and West, winning room to maneuver appeared first on Asia Times.