Qualcomm is the latest company to get caught between the US-China crossfire.
Beijing opened an antitrust investigation against the chipmaker and its proposed acquisition of Israel’s Autotalks, probing whether Qualcomm failed to disclose certain details of the deal. The move comes as the two governments continue to hash out a trade truce that has dragged Nvidia and other tech companies as potential bargaining chips. For companies looking at M&A, China is more of a wild card than usual, and will likely be a tool for the government even if Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reach an agreement.
On another US-China front, G42 said it has the protocols in place to safely house — and own — the world’s most advanced semiconductors despite reportedly being left out of the Trump administration’s deal to export Nvidia chips to the UAE, Semafor’s Kelsey Warner reports.
The AI conglomerate is relying on “gold-standard” security measures to prevent semiconductors from being diverted to China, a person familiar with the matter said, as further export licenses for cutting-edge Nvidia chips remain in limbo. The US green-lit chip exports to the UAE, but only for American companies such as Oracle in deals worth billions of dollars, Bloomberg previously reported.