Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductor manufacturing, anchored by $1 trillion market-cap giant TSMC, has long been seen as a “silicon shield” deterring Chinese aggression. Producing over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, the firm underpins global AI and electronics supply chains. But as Johanna M. Costigan reports in MIT Technology Review, TSMC’s rapid overseas expansion through $165 billion into Arizona, plus new sites in Japan and Germany, may weaken that strategic leverage. U.S. political shifts, notably Donald Trump’s “America First” approach, have brought tariffs, fines, and pressure to “friendshore” without security guarantees. Beijing, meanwhile, advances chip self-sufficiency, escalates military drills, and drives disinformation portraying TSMC’s U.S. buildout as “hollowing out Taiwan.” With rising cross-strait tensions, the next few years will test whether TSMC’s global footprint reinforces or erodes Taiwan’s security, as both Washington and Beijing recalibrate strategies in the tech war.
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On India’s Independence Day, the Bitcoin Policy Institute of India (BPI India) launched to promote Bitcoin as a tool for economic sovereignty and strategic growth. As reported by Frank Corva, the think tank will provide data-driven research, policy advocacy, and public education aimed at building a pro-Bitcoin framework for India. Founding fellow Mithilesh Kumar Jha likened the mission to securing “financial sovereignty on a global, open monetary standard,” emphasizing a more atmanirbhar (self-reliant) India. BPI India’s five-pillar strategy includes guiding states on renewable-powered Bitcoin mining, advocating clear regulation, promoting Bitcoin for national and corporate treasuries, boosting financial literacy, and enabling Lightning-based payments. Inspired partly by Bhutan’s mining model, the institute will debut with a white paper on state-level mining opportunities and a “CFO Playbook” for corporate adoption, positioning India to lead in the global digital asset economy.
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Kazakhstan has launched Central Asia’s first spot Bitcoin ETF, marking a significant step in the region’s regulated digital finance sector. Alex Lari reports the Fonte Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (BETF) began trading mid August on the Astana International Exchange (AIX). Managed by Fonte Capital under the Astana International Financial Centre framework, the ETF is physically backed by bitcoin held in BitGo Trust’s U.S.-regulated cold storage with $250 million in insurance coverage. AIX’s Birzhan Astayev said the debut “opens a new chapter… bringing digital assets into the mainstream of the investment industry.” Available to retail and institutional investors in USD, BETF offers price exposure without custody complexities. Kazakhstan, now a major bitcoin mining hub post-China’s 2021 ban, has tightened regulation while leveraging its energy resources. The AIX views BETF as a catalyst for attracting global investors and diversifying its capital market.
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Google has unveiled Gemma 3 270M, a compact open AI model with just 270 million parameters—small enough to run efficiently on devices like smartphones or in a web browser. Ars Technica reports, the model is designed for local deployment, offering privacy benefits, low latency, and minimal power use; in Pixel 9 Pro testing, it powered 25 conversations while consuming just 0.75% of battery. Despite its size, Gemma 3 270M scored 51.2% on the IFEval instruction-following benchmark, outperforming some larger lightweight models, though falling short of billion-parameter systems like Llama 3.2. Google expects developers to fine-tune it quickly and cheaply for use cases such as text classification and data analysis. Available via Hugging Face, Kaggle, and Vertex AI, the model’s weights are free to download under Google’s custom license, which permits commercial derivatives while enforcing responsible-use provisions.
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