The New AI Winners: Picks and Shovels

When the Chips Are Down, Turn to China?

SALE: We’re offering your first month of The Wire China for just one dollar. More details below! The world is facing a global memory chip shortage, with companies scrambling to buy what they can. The crunch puts desperate U.S. firms in a bind: will they need to start purchasing chips from China? In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Noah Berman discuss the rise  and global allure of China’s homegrown chipmakers. Even though the U.S. government designated two of China’s biggest suppliers as military companies and subjected them to export controls, looming chip shortages mean purchases from China aren’t off the table just yet.  We also feature an extract from our Q&A with author and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom on the importance of understanding Chinese history.  Start your subscription to The Wire China today! We’re making it easy with your first month for just one dollar. Sign up for our free newsletter below and we’ll send you the discount code to apply at checkout.  Subscribe to our free newsletter: www.thewirechina.com/newsletter/  Follow us on social media: x.com/thewirechina bsky.app/profile/thewirechina.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/company/thewirechina www.instagram.com/thewirechina/?hl=en

The New AI Winners: Picks and Shovels

SALE: We’re offering your first month of The Wire China for just one dollar. More details below! Move over, DeepSeek and Minimax. Investors are flocking to a new set of AI winners: the Chinese manufacturers making circuit boards and other components that keep the world's AI models humming along.  In this episode, reporters Rachel Cheung and Savannah Billman discuss the growing importance of these so-called 'pick and shovel' makers and where the money is flowing within China's AI ecosystem. The AI industry is fraught with risk for developers and investors, but the manufacturers will win no matter which LLM comes out on top. Start your subscription to The Wire China today! We’re making it easy with your first month for just one dollar. Sign up for our free newsletter below and we’ll send you the discount code to apply at checkout.  Subscribe to our free newsletter: www.thewirechina.com/newsletter/  Follow us on social media: x.com/thewirechina bsky.app/profile/thewirechina.bsky.social www.linkedin.com/company/thewirechina www.instagram.com/thewirechina/?hl=en

A Troubled Road for TP-Link

SALE: We’re offering your first month of The Wire China for just one dollar. More details below! TP-Link is having a tough year. The California-based, Shenzhen-founded internet router company can’t seem to shake skepticism that moving to the United States means it is no longer Chinese. This week, reporters Noah Berman and Savannah Billman return to the podcast to discuss the strange story of TP-Link. In a bid to shed its Chinese origins and sell in the U.S. market, the company’s owner Jeffrey Chao brought his entire family to the Golden State and restructured the firm. But, as Noah reports, the router company's American Dream is caught up in the U.S. government’s suspicion of Chinese tech companies. We’ll also have a Q&A with Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief, on his new book exploring North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung’s Christian background. Start your subscription to The Wire China today! We’re making it easy with your first month for just one dollar. Sign up for our free newsletter below and we’ll send you the discount code to apply at checkout.  Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://www.thewirechina.com/newsletter/  Follow us on social media: https://x.com/thewirechina https://bsky.app/profile/thewirechina.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewirechina https://www.instagram.com/thewirechina/?hl=en

China’s Missing Reporters

There are fewer U.S. journalists working in China now than at any point since the two countries normalized relations in the 1970s. Today, the New York Times has one reporter in the country, the Wall Street Journal two, soon to be one, and the Washington Post none. Features editor Tom Mitchell and reporter Eliot Chen return to the podcast to discuss Eliot’s investigation into why the journalist population in China has struggled to rebound. While Beijing doesn’t seem to mind this turn of events, the dearth of reporters on the ground in China means the world knows much less about what happens there — a challenge we aim to overcome here at The Wire China.  Eliot’s article will be published this weekend on thewirechina.com [http://thewirechina.com/], along with other stories on China’s leading AI glasses maker Rokid, what exactly Trump’s idea for a U.S.-China Board of Trade entails, Chris Horton on how how tensions with China are bringing Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan closer together, and a Q&A with Sebastian Mallaby on why the U.S. should be ready to give up its chip export controls if it can help secure an AI safety deal with China. Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://www.thewirechina.com/newsletter/  Follow us on social media: https://x.com/thewirechina https://bsky.app/profile/thewirechina.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewirechina https://www.instagram.com/thewirechina/?hl=en

Super Micro’s Super Smugglers

Another day, another AI chip smuggling ring has been busted by the United States government. But this one is different: for the first time, executives from U.S. server manufacturer Super Micro have been charged with selling NVIDIA chips to Chinese buyers — a violation of U.S. export controls. Reporter Eliot Chen returns to the podcast with editor Andrew Peaple to discuss how the operation worked, and why smuggling chips to China is seemingly so hard to stop. Also, we’ll have a clip from our forthcoming Q&A with author Nicholas Niarchos on the impact that the push for clean energy is having on the countries that supply many of the key resources needed for products like batteries and electric vehicles.  Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://www.thewirechina.com/newsletter/  Follow us on social media: https://x.com/thewirechina https://bsky.app/profile/thewirechina.bsky.social https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewirechina https://www.instagram.com/thewirechina/?hl=en