Free Republic

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent. “We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference. “In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.” State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested...

A wave of right-wing social media accounts launched near-identical attacks against a little-known Republican-backed bill aimed at restricting the export of advanced AI chips to adversaries, raising questions about whether the effort was coordinated to derail legislation publicly opposed by Nvidia. The AI OVERWATCH Act was introduced on Dec. 18, but seemingly out of nowhere on Thursday, a group of influencers and X accounts — including Laura Loomer, Ryan Fournier, Wall Street Mav and Defiant L’s — launched a barrage of attacks against the bill, ModelRepublic first reported. The timing, language and even shared errors across the posts prompted some...

SUPPORTING AMERICA’S SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Act) to address national security concerns with respect to imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products.The President directed the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to jointly negotiate agreements, or continue any current negotiations of agreements, to address the threatened impairment of the national security with respect to imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products from any country.The President also imposed a 25% tariff on certain advanced computing chips, such...

The United States has a history of putting rivals on the world stage in a corner economically, obligating them to make the first moves to war.One of the most famous examples of this strategy came on July 26, 1941.On that date, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced sweeping economic sanctions and asset seizures against Japan.Advertisement - story continues belowAs a result of those sanctions, “Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil,” according to History.Needing oil to maintain its military might, Japan had little choice but to declare war on the West and mobilize...

Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq, a designer of high-performance artificial intelligence accelerator chips, for $20 billion in cash, according to Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive, which led the startup’s latest financing round in September. Davis, whose firm has invested more than half a billion dollars in Groq since the company was founded in 2016, said the deal came together quickly. Groq raised $750 million at a valuation of about $6.9 billion three months ago. Investors in the round included Blackrock and Neuberger Berman, as well as Samsung, Cisco , Altimeter and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr....

The world's leading manufacturer of advanced chips is TSMC in Taiwan. Back in 2020, President Trump helped convince TSMC to make a major investment in building chips here in the US, specifically in Arizona.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has agreed to build an advanced chip factory in the United States, in a response to the Trump administration’s growing concerns about the security of the global electronics supply chain and its competitive tensions with China.The decision by T.S.M.C., which operates enormous plants in Taiwan to produce chips used in most smartphones and many other devices, was confirmed late Thursday after earlier press...

HSINCHU, Taiwan - Silicon Valley may be the heart of global tech, but its pulse depends on a special kind of lifeblood — high-end microchips — many of which flow out of a science park on Taiwan's west coast. The park has been home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, since the company's inception nearly four decades ago. It is from this base that TSMC made itself indispensable to modern life; its chips are in everything from cell phones to cars. By some estimates, it produces over 90% of the world's most advanced chips. But the calculus has been...

Taiwanese National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Cheng-wen said that Taiwan and the United States have reached a “consensus” to keep tariffs off Taipei’s semiconductor industry.The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Oct. 20, 2021. AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, FileIn a Financial Times interview published on Nov. 20, Wu said that Taiwan will support the United States in building its chip industry, and in return, the United States will offer tariff relief for the island’s semiconductor sector.“Of course, there’s the recipes of how to make the chips, but it’s also about the science park management, attracting...

Two Chinese nationals and two U.S. citizens have been charged with a scheme to illegally export advanced Nvidia chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls, the Department of Justice said on Nov. 20.In a file photograph, the logo of Nvidia Corporation during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 30, 2017. Tyrone Siu/ReutersLi Cham, 38, a California resident, and Chen Jing, 45, who resides in Florida on an F-1 nonimmigrant student visa, are the two Chinese nationals accused of the illegal exporting scheme. The two U.S. citizens are Ho Hong Ning, 34, a Florida resident...

The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data centre projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically-made artificial intelligence chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centres that are less than 30% complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage will be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China's most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a pause...

Nvidia, the American semiconductor giant, has seen its dominance in China’s advanced chip market vanish, with its market share dropping from 95% to Zero due to stringent US export controls, according to CEO Jensen Huang. Speaking at a Citadel Securities event in New York earlier this month, Huang revealed that Nvidia is completely barred from selling its high-performance AI chips, including the A100, H100, and H200 models, to Chinese companies since restrictions began in 2022. A video of the interview was released recently. Huang expressed hope for a policy shift, stating, “We will continue to explain and inform and hold...

Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow expressed concern on Friday over the Trump administration’s move to take a 10 percent stake in mega chipmaker Intel. “I am very, very uncomfortable with that idea. I’m very uncomfortable with that one, but that’s a conversation for another meal on another day,” Kudlow told economist Stephen Moore, in an interview highlighted by Mediate. Moore himself, a Trump economic adviser, earlier in the appearance, also criticized the administration’s decision, calling it “terrible.” “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the...

The Trump administration has launched their own 'Manhattan Project' as reports have suggested one of America's largest chipmakers could be partly nationalized. Intel, the largest chip fabricator in the US, has been in talks with Donald Trump over a potential government stake in the company. While the percentage stake the government is asking for has not been made public, nationalizing a company is typically reserved for national emergencies. The government nationalized a number of banks after the 2008 financial crisis and key logistics companies during World War II. It comes amid concerns that America relies too heavily on TSCM, a...

Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) H20 chips present security risks for China, according to a social media account linked to Chinese state media, which made the claim on Sunday after Beijing raised concerns about potential backdoor access in the chips. The account, Yuyuan Tantian- affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV also argued in a WeChat post that the H20 chips are neither technologically advanced nor environmentally friendly. “When a type of chip is neither environmentally friendly, nor advanced, nor safe, as consumers, we certainly have the option not to buy it,” the article concluded. Nvidia did not immediately comment. The H20 artificial intelligence chips...

Nvidia chips do not contain "backdoors" allowing remote access, the US tech giant has said, after Beijing summoned company representatives to discuss "serious security issues". The California-based company is a world-leading producer of AI semiconductors, and this month became the first company to hit US$4 trillion in market value. But it has become entangled in trade tensions between China and the United States, and Washington effectively restricts which chips Nvidia can export to China on national security grounds. "Cybersecurity is critically important to us. Nvidia does not have 'backdoors' in our chips that would give anyone a remote way to...

Psst, wanna buy some innovation?An estimated $1 billion worth of smuggled high-end Nvidia AI processors have reportedly found their way onto the Chinese black market, despite the US government's strict restrictions on exports of the tech. The eyebrow-raising figure, which Nvidia has neither confirmed nor refuted, was revealed by the Financial Times, which claims to have based its reporting on a combination of interviews and analyses of company filings and sales contracts. If accurate, the report sheds light on the limitations of the US trade policy's ability to control the movement of much sought-after AI technology around the world. The...

The Trump administration has told US companies that offer software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups, in the latest attempt to make it harder for China to develop advanced chips. Several people familiar with the move said the US Department of Commerce had told so-called electronic design automation groups — which include Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA — to stop supplying their technology to China.

A month before President Trump’s inauguration, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff flew to the United Arab Emirates with two goals: discussing regional issues with the Abu Dhabi royal known as the “spy sheikh,” and attending a cryptocurrency conference. Less than five months later, Witkoff’s son, co-founder of the crypto venture World Liberty Financial, took the stage at a conference in Dubai to announce the company had struck a deal for the sheikh’s company to buy $2 billion of their new cryptocurrency. The expected tens of millions of dollars in annual profits would be split between the Witkoffs and their co-founders—and...

A microchip shortage is translating to higher car prices across America. CBS reported that the average price of a new car has topped $40,000 and that used car prices have risen nearly 30 percent due to the shortage. Lansing, Michigan, resident Heather Lyons knows that firsthand. In looking to buy a replacement for a totaled car, she said she will end up paying more to get less, according to WILX-TV. “It really is bad. My car payment last time for a decent vehicle was something I could afford and this time it’s going to be a worse vehicle for more...

At the store today for the first time saw SINGLE SERVING chip bags for sale. 160 calories per bag. Kennedys influence is already present in the stores. We have not seen these sizes fire sale individually in stores in 30 to 40 years