The European Commission said on Thursday it had approved a 920 million euro German state aid to Infineon for the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The measure will allow Infineon (IFXGn.DE), to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of chips, the Commission added.

Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The European Commission has earmarked 15 billion euros for public and private semiconductor projects by 2030.

“This new manufacturing plant will bring flexible production capacity to the EU and thereby strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and technological autonomy in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act,” the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission said the plant – which will reach full capacity in 2031 – will be a front-end facility, covering wafer processing, testing and separation, adding that its chips will be used in industrial, automotive and consumer applications.

The aid will take the form of a direct grant of up to 920 million euros to Infineon to support its investment amounting to 3.5 billion euros. Infineon has said the plant will be the largest single investment in its history.

Infineon has agreed with the EU to ensure the project will bring wider positive effects to the EU semiconductor value chain and invest in the research and development of the next generation of chips in Europe, the Commission said.

It will also contribute to crisis preparedness by committing to implement priority-rated orders in the case of a supply shortage in line with the European Chips Act.

Source: www.reuters.com

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday that he was talking to China about TikTok as the United States seeks to broker a sale of the popular app.

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Nasdaq futures slumped and technology shares slid in Japan on Monday as surging popularity of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model wobbled investors’ faith in the profitability of AI and the sector’s voracious demand for high-tech chips.

Nasdaq 100 futures were down 2.6% and S&P 500 futures slipped 1.4% by the European morning, and shares in Nvidia (NVDA.O) supplier Advantest (6857.T) fell 8.5% in Tokyo.

Frankfurt-listed shares of Nvidia slipped about 7%, while those of Tesla , Amazon and Meta fell more than 2% in early European trading.

Startup DeepSeek has rolled out a free assistant it says uses lower-cost chips and less data, seemingly challenging a widespread bet in financial markets that AI will drive demand along a supply chain from chipmakers to data centres.

“It’s a case of a crowded trade, and now DeepSeek is giving a reason for investors and traders to unwind,” said Wong Kok Hoong, head of equity sales trading at Maybank. AI-focused startup investor SoftBank Group (9984.T) slid more than 8%, on course for its biggest one-day fall since Sept. 30. Last week it announced a $19 billion commitment to fund Stargate, a data-centre joint venture with OpenAI.

Chip-making equipment giant Tokyo Electron (8035.T) fell 5%.

Tech-heavy markets in Taiwan and South Korea were closed.

European tech stocks (.SX8P), especially Dutch computer chip equipment maker ASML (ASML.AS), which counts Taiwan’s TSMC (2330.TW), Intel (INTC.O) and Samsung (005930.KS) as its customers, will likely face pressure at the open.

Shares of Nvidia, the poster child of AI, have risen 196% since the start of 2024, outperforming the 35% gain in the Nasdaq (.IXIC).What we strive to do is to show to the world that flying V is a viable alternative to the Cuban wing airplane that we’re flying with now and it can be as safe but much more energy efficient.

CAPEX IN QUESTION

Little is known about the small Hangzhou startup behind DeepSeek, but its assistant leapfrogged rival ChatGPT to become the top-rated free application on Apple’s App Store in the United States on Monday.

DeepSeek researchers wrote in a paper last month that the DeepSeek-V3 model, launched on Jan. 10, used Nvidia’s H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million.

H800 chips are not top-of-the-line. Initially developed as a reduced-capability product to get around restrictions on sales to China, they were subsequently banned by U.S. sanctions.

Besides chips, data centres and related companies also took a hit on Monday, with Malaysia’s utility conglomerate YTL Power (YTLP.KL) falling 7% in Kuala Lumpur to its lowest in two months.

“The market is questioning the capex spend of the major tech companies,” said Nick Ferres, chief investment officer at Vantage Point Asset Management in Singapore, noting that positioning had become crowded.

To be sure, much remains unknown about the details of DeepSeek’s development and the hardware it uses.

“The idea that the most cutting-edge technologies in America, like Nvida and ChatGPT, are the most superior globally, there’s concern that this perspective might start to change,” said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management. “I think it might be a bit premature.”

Markets reaction in China was also mixed, with a CSI300 index of AI shares (.CSI930713) down 2.2% but big data stocks (.CSI930745) up 4%.

(This story has been refiled to remove an extraneous letter in paragraph 10)

Source: www.reuters.com