#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.

Regardless of this year's stock market volatility, the explosive demand for semiconductors and microchips that has grabbed news headlines and led the market higher over the past few years remains. As the drive toward integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into our everyday lives progresses, a handful of mega-cap companies are capable of meeting that demand. While Nvidia Corp. ( NASDAQ: NVDA) may get the lion's share of attention, companies like Broadcom Inc. ( NASDAQ: AVGO) will also be playing a central role in supply.

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.

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.