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Tech News
Footage circulating online shows workshops in China desoldering GB202 GPUs and GDDR7 memory from new GeForce RTX 5090 cards, then rebuilding them with blower-style coolers for server racks. The operations reportedly process both custom partner cards and Nvidia Founders Edition units, repackaging them for shipment to data centers or AI labs.
Apple launched its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, globally on Friday, with scalpers outside the Sanlitun flagship store in Beijing offering buyers roughly 3,000 yuan ($448) above retail price for their newly purchased units. One scalper, Alex Wang, said he expects to resell the devices at a markup for about two weeks due to limited supply. Customers, including one who arrived at 6 a.m. to join a line of about 100 people, said they were eager for Apple to finally enter the foldable category.
Counterpoint Research reports China's overall smartphone shipments fell 10% year-over-year in Q3 2026, marking a 14-year low. Apple's share rose 4.8 percentage points to 19.5%, moving it from sixth to second place behind Huawei, which gained 5.3 points to lead with 21.3%. Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, and HONOR all lost share during the quarter.
Despite lacking access to ASML's EUV machines due to export controls, Chinese foundries have pushed older deep ultraviolet lithography to produce increasingly advanced chips. Analysis of Huawei's Kirin 9030 shows SMIC has achieved density approaching 5nm-class manufacturing using multiple patterning techniques on DUV tools, following its earlier 7nm-class Kirin 9000S chip. Experts including Fractilia's Chris Mack note this approach remains behind TSMC and Samsung's leading processes.
Israeli security firm Lava says it identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 chips operating inside the network of state-owned China Telecom, despite these chips being barred from export to China under U.S. controls. Lava says it detected the chips using Nvidia's own DCGM Exporter monitoring tool, though it cannot confirm exactly where in China Telecom's infrastructure they reside. Nvidia did not dispute the finding but said diversion of controlled chips remains statistically insignificant.
Microsoft's Security blog reports that Storm-0940, a China-state-aligned hacking group, used an open-source AI agentic penetration-testing tool called ARTEX to exploit stolen ConnectWise application credentials, attempting sign-ins across more than 2,250 Microsoft 365 tenants. The group also ran automated password-spraying attacks against 327 accounts at eight organizations, generating over 151,000 failed login attempts without success. Microsoft says the breach did not stem from any vulnerability in its own systems and that it remains unclear how the ConnectWise credentials were obtained or how many tenants were actually compromised.
OpenAI has dismissed three staff members following internal suspicions that they leaked information, according to reporting. Details on what exactly was leaked or to whom have not been fully disclosed.
TSMC has reportedly begun asking its equipment suppliers whether they can build factory automation machinery using motors that avoid rare-earth materials, according to a Reuters report citing people familiar with the matter. The move targets electric motors in TSMC's fabrication plants that typically rely on permanent magnets made from elements like neodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
The US government has prohibited the use of DeepSeek, the Chinese AI chatbot, on government devices and networks. The move cites national security and data-privacy concerns tied to the app's Chinese ownership.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has directed federal civilian agencies to strip DeepSeek and any third-party products built on its technology from their IT systems, according to a notice dating from late July that was made public this week. The order also bars agencies from procuring DeepSeek products going forward, citing concerns that the Chinese company's servers could expose sensitive U.S. data to Chinese authorities. Beijing responded through Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who said China would defend its companies' rights and accused Washington of politicizing technology issues under the guise of national security.
The Department of Homeland Security has directed U.S. federal civilian agencies to stop buying and to remove products and services built on Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI, citing national security risks from data that could be accessed by Chinese authorities. The ban extends beyond DeepSeek's own tools to third-party products built on its technology, though agencies may seek exceptions. China's Foreign Ministry criticized the move as politicizing trade and technology issues.
Chinese tech giants ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have reportedly placed orders worth over $35 billion for more than 3 million Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 workstation GPUs, according to Reuters sources. The RTX Pro 5500 is export-compliant under current U.S. restrictions, but the order volume reportedly exceeds Nvidia's entire planned 2027 global production, prompting Nvidia to tell customers it can't fulfill the full demand.