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Taiwan's $250B Deal and China's H200 Ban Reshape the AI Arms Race
Taiwan's $250B Deal and China's H200 Ban Reshape the AI Arms Race
TSMC US Deal, OpenAI's $10b Cerebras Deal Eyes Faster Chips, Trump Approves H200 Exports
The Tech Buzz
January 16, 2026
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WHAT’S INSIDE THIS SPECIAL EDITION
Feature: Taiwan's $250B Deal and China's H200 Ban Reshape the AI Arms Race
Top Tech News: Stocks rise on strong bank earnings, TSMC deal, oil slide, Senators Deepfake Push, Crypto, & Surveillance, NY Robotaxis, Wall St Optimism
Company Watch: ElevenLabs, Parloa $3B Val, Higgsfield AI video, and OpenAI invests in Altman’s Merge Labs' brain-computer interface tech.
Buzzy Tools: Gemini “Personal Intelligence”, Digg, Pocket TTS voice cloning
Buzzy Tech: SkyFi, AI-designed genetic circuits, EtherealX reusable rocket bet.
Crypto: Senate stablecoin draft, CoinGecko sale, Noise ($7.1M) and post-quantum security startup Project Eleven, & WYDE’s Open Deal.
TECH NEWS TRENDING TODAY
Chipmaking Alliance — The US and Taiwan ink a $250B deal to cut tariffs and boost US chip facilities. TSMC plans six fabs in Arizona. China blocks Nvidia's H200 AI chips from entry.
Stocks Soar on Earnings — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley reported strong profits, boosting bank stocks, while TSMC's positive chip outlook lifted tech shares.
Oil Price Plunge — Oil prices fell by around 4% after Pres. Trump signaled a reduction in tensions with Iran, easing fears of supply disruptions.
Deepfake Crackdown — Eight U.S. senators demand tech giants like X and Meta prove effective safeguards against sexualized deepfakes.
Surveillance Expansion — Critics suggest the new Senate bill may mark the largest expansion of U.S. financial surveillance since the PATRIOT Act, including granting the Treasury power to freeze transactions without court orders.
Robotaxi Rollout — NY Governor Kathy Hochul proposes legalizing robotaxis statewide, excluding NYC. The law would expand a current autonomous vehicle pilot.
Wall Street Optimism — Investment bankers predict a thriving 2026 with a surge in M&A and IPOs. Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan report robust pipelines, especially in healthcare and industrial sectors.
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Taiwan's $250B Deal and China's H200 Ban Reshape the AI Arms Race
The Tech Buzz Editorial
TSMC just turned the Arizona desert into the world's most expensive construction site. The Taiwanese chip giant has committed $165 billion to build what will become America's semiconductor fortress: 12 manufacturing facilities producing the planet's most advanced chips by 2028. The first fab started production last quarter, hitting yields that match Taiwan's gold standard facilities. The second fab finished construction ahead of schedule, with 3-nanometer equipment arriving this summer for a 2027 launch, a full year early. TSMC reportedly plans record capex of up to $56 Billion for 2026.
This speed matters because every month counts in the AI race. TSMC Arizona will manufacture chips using 2nm technology by 2029, putting the U.S. back at the cutting edge of semiconductor production for the first time in decades. The complex will pump out 600,000 wafers annually, each containing hundreds of advanced processors that power everything from ChatGPT to autonomous vehicles. Construction costs run 4-5x higher than Taiwan, but Washington considers this the price of technological independence.
Beijing's Blockade
While Arizona's fabs rise from the sand, China just slammed the door on American AI chips. Chinese customs officials received explicit orders this week: Nvidia's H200 processors cannot enter the country. Tech companies were summoned to meetings where government officials told them to stop purchasing these chips unless absolutely necessary. One source described the language as "so severe that it is basically a ban."
The timing stings. President Trump had just approved H200 sales to China with a 25% government surcharge, expecting to generate billions in revenue while maintaining some control over China's AI development. Chinese companies had already placed orders for over 2 million H200 chips worth ~$54 billion. ByteDance and Alibaba each wanted 200,000 units. Now those orders sit in limbo as Beijing uses the chips as leverage ahead of Trump's planned April meeting with Xi Jinping.
The H200 delivers roughly 6x the performance of the older H20 chip that China previously rejected. Without access to these processors, Chinese companies face a massive disadvantage in training large AI models. Yet Beijing appears willing to accept this handicap rather than depend on U.S. technology that could potentially be used for surveillance or include kill switches.
The Homegrown Alternative
China's rejection of U.S. chips coincides with Huawei's aggressive production ramp. The company plans to manufacture 600,000 Ascend 910C chips in 2026, double this year's output. Total production across the Ascend line will reach 1.6 million dies, the basic silicon components that form the heart of AI processors.
The numbers tell a sobering story about China's progress despite US sanctions. While Huawei's chips lag behind Nvidia's in raw performance (the upcoming Ascend 950 delivers only 6% of Nvidia's VR200 capability), they work well enough for many AI applications. Chinese tech giants including Alibaba, Baidu, and DeepSeek are buying everything Huawei can produce. The company has also unveiled its UnifiedBus protocol, allowing up to 15,488 chips to work together as a single system, compensating for individual chip weakness through massive scale.
Huawei's HiSilicon remains the leading player in China's AI chip market despite the surge of IPOs from newer players. The geopolitical pressures have driven Huawei to enhance its internal R&D, allowing it to dominate AI inference deployments. In contrast, public companies face pressure to demonstrate quick revenue growth, often positioning themselves as cost alternatives rather than performance leaders.
OpenAI, Cerebras & The Chip Speed Revolution
Lost in the semiconductor showdown is OpenAI's fascinating bet on alternative architectures. The company just signed a $10 billion deal with Cerebras for 750 megawatts of computing power through 2028. Cerebras builds wafer-scale chips that combine compute, memory, and bandwidth on single giant processors. These chips respond up to 15x faster than traditional GPUs for certain tasks.
This matters because AI is evolving beyond raw training power. Voice assistants, real-time translation, and AI agents need instant responses more than massive compute. OpenAI will use Cerebras for these latency-sensitive applications while keeping Nvidia chips for heavy training workloads. The deal also reduces OpenAI's dependence on a single supplier, important when geopolitical tensions can suddenly cut off access to critical hardware.
Nvidia is also following this trajectory, last week it acquired Groq for $20 billion, neutralizing a key competitor in low-latency inference technology, and allowing it to enhance its chip architecture and maintain its market position against rivals. The deal reflects a shift in focus from training to inference in AI hardware, emphasizing the importance of specialized processing.
The Splitting Chips World
These moves add up to something bigger than trade disputes or corporate rivalries. The global technology stack is splitting into two incompatible spheres. According to analysis from the Institute for Progress, unrestricted H200 exports would have shrunk the U.S. AI compute advantage from 21-49x to as little as 1.2x by 2026. China's import ban maintains that gap but accelerates the development of completely separate AI ecosystems.
By 2028, devices and services will essentially pick a side. Western AI models will train on TSMC chips in Arizona data centers. Chinese AI will run on Huawei processors manufactured by SMIC. The software, training data, and even the mathematical approaches will diverge. This technological divorce will shape how billions of people interact with artificial intelligence for decades to come.
"It's truly like Trump is handing our opponents our coordinates in the middle of a battle. Why are we giving up our advantage?"
Gabe Amo, Democratic Congressman
Breaking News: $EAT hits All-Time High Marketcap and Meals Funded ($14.4M MC & 5000 meals)
Ending Hunger is public!
The first crypto 501c4 nonprofit (WYDE: END HUNGER $EAT) that has aimed to use trade fees to feed those who are hungry has just hit it’s all time high ($14.4M FDV) the same day it reached the milestone of funding 5000 meals.
Coinbase Listing: $EAT
It was launched on the Wyoming Decentralized Exchange and is now tradable on Coinbase.
About WYDE: END HUNGER($EAT)
Tradable on Coinbase - TRADE
The first cause coin with an organizational structure behind it (DUNA 501c4 federally approved tax exempt organization).
The $EAT team is working with some of the most well-respected nonprofits in America
Every trade funds verified food banks and operators who impact their local community.
Holding $EAT provides you with governance in the organization (coming soon)
Fair launched and fully decentralized.
Meals Funded so far: 5,100 / Next Milestone: 10,000
Current number of holders: 548
Visit www.wyde.org for more information on Wyoming Decentralized Exchange
Companies To Watch
Apple x Google partner to enhance Siri using Gemini AI, aiming for a more personalized voice assistant to launch with iOS 26.4.
Protege raised a $30M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz to enhance access to high-quality, non-public data for AI development, accelerating product growth and expanding its data network.
U.S. AI cloud infrastructure provider, Lambda plans to raise at least $350M in a pre-IPO round. Partnering with Nvidia for AI chips, it aims for a 2026 IPO, despite a $175M loss last year, with $520M in revenue growth.
ElevenLabs, a leading voice AI startup, reached $330M in ARR in 2025, growing from $100M in 15 months. Used by Fortune 500 companies and startups, it raised $180M at a $3.3B valuation.
xAI chatbot Grok AI will be integrated into the Pentagon's network this month as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasizes the necessity for innovation using military data.
Berlin-based AI customer service company, Parloa, raised a $350M Series D led by General Catalyst, tripling its valuation to $3B in eight months. It enhances AI for personalized interactions.
Higgsfield, an AI video platform, founded by ex-Snap executive Alex Mashrabov, hit a $1.3B valuation on raising a $130M Series A extension. With 15M users, & $200M ARR, it targets professional social media marketers.
OpenAI invested the largest share of a $250M seed round at an $850M valuation into Merge Labs, Sam Altman’s brain-computer interface startup focusing on noninvasive neuron tech.
Buzzy Tools and Tech To Watch
Buzzy Tools
Sweetpea — Leaked OpenAI gadget may be an AirPods-like AI voice assistant.
Google — Gemini Personal Intelligence accesses Gmail, Photos, Search, YT data. Gemini enhances Trends Explorer + Ads feature for fixed budgets.
Digg — News platform re-launched to compete with Reddit.
CL Card by Ledger — Spend crypto or use it as collateral with over 90M merchants.
Kyutai — Pocket TTS offers local voice cloning on CPUs from 5 sec audio.
Buzzy Tech
SkyFi — Raised $12.7M to convert satellite images into actionable insights.
CLASSIC — AI designs genetic circuits for cell therapies in synthetic biology.
Spin-Wave Chip — Tunable chip for telecoms beyond 5G/6G, no external magnets.
EtherealX — Indian SpaceX rival boosts valuation with reusable rocket strategy.
Death-Defying Cells — Cells aid tissue repair, hope for resistant cancer treatments.
CRYPTO NEWS
Senate Stablecoin Bill — The Senate Banking Committee introduced a bill banning interest on idle stablecoin holdings, allowing only activity-based rewards, aiming at mitigating liquidity risks.
Also: Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan warns of up to $6T in deposits shifting to stablecoins if interest is allowed.
CoinGecko Sale — CoinGecko is reportedly exploring a sale valued at $500M, a strategic move that could significantly impact the data aggregator's market position.
Noise Prediction Markets — Noise secured a $7.1M seed led by Paradigm. Noise allows bets on social media topic trends and is set to launch its mainnet on Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2.
Project Eleven — The startup focuses on securing crypto against quantum threats raised a $20M Series A at a $120M valuation led by Castle Island Ventures.
[OPEN DEAL] WYDE’s $EAT Impact Token Special Feature
The WYDE $EAT Token Open Deal
We have been shouting from the rooftops about Wyoming Decentralized Exchange (WYDE), marking it as one of the key innovators we see in the crypto and blockchain sector as well as in the wider charity and impact space.
Since we first covered WYDE pre-launch in December, its first Impact Token, $EAT (End Hunger) has gone on to reach a $10M market cap at its peak, while already funding over 4000 meals for registered charities helping to combat food insecurity in the US. Here they are pitching Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong the concept, jump into the thread and help them to get his attention.
Breaking News: $EAT hits all-time high marketcap and meals funded ($14.4M MC & 5000 meals)
Ending Hunger is public!
The first crypto 501c4 nonprofit (WYDE: END HUNGER $EAT) that has aimed to use trade fees to feed those who are hungry has just hit it’s all time high ($14.4M FDV) the same day it reached the milestone of funding 5000 meals.
Coinbase Listing: $EAT
It was launched on the Wyoming Decentralized Exchange and is now tradable on Coinbase.
About WYDE: END HUNGER($EAT)
Tradable on Coinbase - TRADE
The first cause coin with an organizational structure behind it (DUNA 501c4 organization).
The $EAT team is working with some of the most well-respected nonprofits in America
Every trade funds verified food banks and operators who impact their local community.
Holding $EAT provides you with governance in the organization (coming soon)
Fair launched and decentralized.
Meals Funded so far:5,100 / Next Milestone: 10,000
Current number of holders: 548
Visit www.wyde.org for more information on Wyoming Decentralized Exchange
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