TMR

THE Trump administration will not seek equity stakes in chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Micron Technology Inc. that are boosting their US investments, as talks continue on taking a stake in Intel Corp., a US official said.

Companies that are boosting investment pledges in the US will not be pressed to offer equity in exchange for funding such as from the Chips Act, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe the administration’s thinking. 

Micron has pledged $200 billion in US investment, while TSMC has pledged to invest an additional $100 billion. 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has signaled that President Donald Trump wants to see more direct benefits in exchange for government funding to boost key companies. “We’ll get equity in return for it, get a good return for the American taxpayer instead of just giving grants away,” Lutnick told CNBC this week.

The highest-profile equity example to date is Intel, where the Trump administration is in talks to take a potential 10% stake in the company, including by converting Chips Act funding into shares. The administration has not fully detailed its talks with Intel, or which companies it may be having similar discussions with.

The push by Trump follows moves to seek a cut of certain chip sales to China and a so-called golden share in United States Steel Corp. — breaking from a more free market orthodoxy that has typically dominated the Republican Party.

Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has criticized the strategy. “State-owned enterprise is not the American way,” he told Bloomberg Television on Thursday.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The plan to not seek equity from TSMC and Micron was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. –BLOOMBERG

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NVIDIA Corp. has instructed component suppliers including Samsung Electronics Co. and Amkor Technology Inc. to stop production related to the H20 AI chip, the Information reported, citing unidentified sources.

Nvidia issued those orders this week after Beijing urged local companies to avoid using the H20, the Information said, referring to a chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.

A production suspension would raise questions about fundamental demand for the H20, a less-powerful version of Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI accelerators that competes with capable chips from the likes of Huawei Technologies Co. and Cambricon Technologies Corp.

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. both recently secured Washington’s approval to resume lower-end AI chip sales to China, on the controversial and legally questionable condition that they give the US government a 15% cut of the related revenue. 

But their Chinese customers are under pressure to adopt homegrown chips instead — part of a broader objective to build a world-class domestic industry and wean the country off US technology. 

In past weeks, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging use of the less-advanced semiconductors, Bloomberg News has reported. That followed warnings about alleged security risks in the H20 chips, after Washington officials said they were considering ways to equip chips with better location-tracking capabilities.

Nvidia — which is due to report earnings next week — has repeatedly denied it builds such features or backdoors into its product. Representatives for Amkor didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment after normal hours. A Samsung representative declined to comment. 

“We constantly manage our supply chain to address market conditions,” an Nvidia spokesperson said. 

“As both governments recognize, the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure. China won’t rely on American chips for government operations, just like the US government would not rely on chips from China. However, allowing US chips for beneficial commercial business use is good for everyone.”

It’s unclear whether the Information’s story relates to new production of the H20 or stockpiles of unfinished AI accelerators. Semi-finished semiconductors are “piling up” at Amkor, which packages chips for customers like Nvidia, the Information reported. 

Nvidia, which wrote off $5.5 billion of H20 chips for China after the Trump administration decided to ban the product, is still sitting on unsold inventory. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has said the US reversal of that ban over the summer could help Nvidia recover some but not all of that writedown. –BLOOMBERG

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CALI (Colombia) – Colombian authorities said five people were killed and dozens more injured when a truck bomb tore through a busy street in the city of Cali on Thursday, deepening the country’s most serious security crisis in decades.

Police said the explosion targeted a military aviation school in the city’s north — a fresh challenge to Colombia’s fragile peace process ahead of 2026 elections.

“There was a thunderous sound of something exploding near the air base,” 65-year-old eyewitness Hector Fabio Bolanos told AFP.

“There were so many injured people,” he said. “Many houses were damaged in front of the base.”

Cali mayor Alejandro Eder said preliminary reports were that at least five people were killed and 36 people injured.

Fearing further explosions, he announced a temporary ban on large trucks entering the city and a US$10,000 reward for information.

Several buildings and a local school were evacuated.

Cali is Colombia’s third-largest city, home to more than two million people, famed for its vibrant salsa-infused nightlife and cartel-tainted past.

Eyewitness Alexis Atizabal, 40, said civilians appeared to be among the victims.

“There were fatalities among people passing by on the avenue,” he said.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast, but Eder blamed it on “narcoterrorists.”

Many of Colombia’s armed groups — once based on leftist or right-wing ideologies — are now de facto drug cartels, funding themselves through the lucrative cocaine trade.

In June, leftist guerrillas claimed responsibility for a wave of 24 coordinated bomb and gun attacks near Cali that killed seven people.

The group, the Central General Staff (EMC), rejected a 2016 peace deal and has upped operations ahead of next year’s vote.

As yet, the group has not claimed responsibility for Thursday’s blast.

‘Most painful days’

Left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and murderous cartels still control pockets of Colombia, but the country has enjoyed a decade or more of relative calm.

The 2016 peace deal saw the main rebel group, the FARC, disarm and demobilize after a six-decade-long insurgency.

But there has been a recent surge in violence that experts say demonstrates armed groups are regaining strength and the ability to carry out coordinated, complex attacks.

Former top security officials have voiced concern that the Colombian intelligence services have lost a step and are no longer able to detect and foil plots.

In a seemingly unrelated attack on Thursday, eight people were killed in clashes between guerrillas and police in the northwest of the country.

The police officers had been eradicating coca crops near the city of Medellin when a drone was used to down a helicopter.

Colombians are fearful of a return to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks, guerrilla violence and political assassinations were commonplace.

The latest attacks heaped pressure on the government of President Gustavo Petro, whose conciliatory approach to armed groups has been blamed for the uptick in violence.

In response to Thursday’s attacks, Petro said dissident guerrillas loyal to warlord Ivan Mordisco, another group known as the “Segunda Marquetalia” and the country’s largest cartel the Clan del Golfo would be declared “terrorist organizations”.

Petro is constitutionally barred from running again in next year’s elections.

Earlier this month, Colombia buried 39-year-old conservative presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, who was shot in June while campaigning in the capital Bogota.

“Our country is going through the darkest, saddest, and most painful days,” his widow Maria Claudia Tarazona told the funeral service.

Uribe’s own mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in a botched 1991 police operation to free her from cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel. –AFP

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