The US government is contacting key allies to get them to persuade telecoms in their nations to avoid using equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), the Wall Street Journal reported.
US officials have reached out to counterparts and executives in nations including Germany, Italy and Japan about perceived cybersecurity risks, the Journal said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
The US might boost aid for telecommunications development in nations that shun Huawei equipment, some of the people said.
Huawei has long been labeled a security risk by US lawmakers because of alleged links to the Chinese government, in part because it was founded by former military engineer Ren Zhengfei (任正非).
While the Shenzhen-based company has denied any inappropriate connections, it has been banned in Australia from supplying fifth-generation wireless equipment, faced scrutiny in Britain and found itself largely shut out from the US market.
Scrutiny of Huawei has increased since US President Donald Trump came to power as trade tensions between Washington and Beijing escalate.
The closely held company is now the world’s second-largest maker of smartphones and is one of the biggest producers of equipment for running telephone networks.
Huawei did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Asked for comment on the Journal report, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) yesterday said that China hoped the relevant nations could provide a fair environment for its companies, Reuters reported.
The spread on Huawei’s 3.25 percent US dollar bonds due in 2022 widened, with investors demanding the biggest yield premium since early July, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Analysts cited the story as adding to weak sentiment in Chinese and Hong Kong equity markets, which led regional losses.
US officials are concerned about the use of the Chinese equipment in nations that host US military bases such as Germany, Japan and Italy, the Journal reported.
There is concern about China’s ability to force companies to comply with government requests, it said.
A number of major telecoms directed more than 5 percent of their capital expenditure to Huawei, according to Bloomberg supply chain data.
That includes Telecom Italia SpA, and Japan’s NTT Docomo Inc and KDDI Corp, the data showed.
Huawei has been pouring billions of dollars into developing fifth-generation technology and its potential to become the global leader in the space is said to be a reason why Trump blocked the biggest ever chip deal earlier this year.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
RSS