chips

The South Korean government has announced significant project plans in the areas of chips, physical artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence data centers. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung stated that it is necessary to ensure the development of artificial intelligence elements faster than other countries, and chip production construction must be completed as soon as possible.The current factory site selection is nearing its limits in terms of water resources and other infrastructure. The southwestern region will invest between 50 trillion to 200 trillion won in the new projects, while Gwangju and Jeolla may invest 52 trillion won in the projects. Regarding the detailed planning for the factories, the South Korean government announced that it is expected to build four chip factories in the southwest, with an investment of about 800 trillion won; Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will each build two new factories; it is expected that investment in the chip sector will reach at least 300 trillion won over the next 15 years, including next-generation memory, edge artificial intelligence, and defense.Investment in the chip packaging cluster in the Chungcheong region is expected to reach 81 trillion won. It is anticipated that approximately 55 trillion won will be invested in the construction of artificial intelligence data centers. The South Korean government expects to double DRAM production capacity within five years, and the global memory market is expected to quadruple in five years. The South Korean side also stated that it seeks to distribute the growth dividends to the public.

According to Yicai, there were previous reports that Kunlun Core, a subsidiary of Baidu, plans to go public in Hong Kong, and Tencent has become its client, while ByteDance is also considering using its AI chips. In response to this, sources close to the matter told Yicai today that ByteDance currently has no intention of cooperating with Kunlun Core.

According to the Financial Times, Apple is lobbying the Trump administration for approval to purchase memory chips from Chinese chipmaker Changxin Storage. Due to multiple factors leading to a rise in memory prices, Apple unusually raised the prices of MacBook and iPad on Thursday, resulting in a market value loss of $263 billion. Apple hopes to alleviate the financial pressure from suppliers by including Changxin Storage in its list of memory suppliers.Changxin Storage and Yangtze Memory Technologies have currently been placed on the U.S. Department of Defense's blacklist of Chinese military companies (the 1260H list). The U.S. Department of Commerce had planned to add Changxin Storage to the entity list last year, but the White House postponed the plan due to ongoing trade negotiations with China at that time. Currently, aside from Chinese companies, the global memory chip industry is mainly dominated by three companies: U.S.-based Micron, and South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix.

According to Jinshi reports, Broadcom is expected to deploy OpenAI chips faster than anticipated.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, within 2 days, the SIREN controllers have essentially "broken down" 680 million SIREN (accounting for 94% of the total). This sell-off of SIREN led to a price drop of 96% (from $1.3 to $0.05), resulting in approximately 64.8 million USDT. About 200 million of these flowed into centralized exchanges such as Binance, Gate, and KuCoin, with most being bought in small amounts on-chain by hundreds of addresses after the price fell below $0.1. These small purchases are likely still orchestrated by the controllers, aiming to recover chips at low prices, increase tracking difficulty, and prepare for the next manipulation.

Recently, the global memory chip sector has been active, with the expansion of AI computing power and the ongoing construction of data centers continuously driving market demand for high-performance storage products, attracting widespread attention from investors. According to Gate market data, Micron Technology (MU) reached a high of $933.49 in 24 hours, currently reported at $906.52, with a 24-hour increase of 3.49%; SK Hynix (SKHYNIX) reached a high of $1348.10 in 24 hours, currently reported at $1318.40, with a 24-hour increase of 8.31%. According to CoinGlass data, the trading volume of Gate MU (Micron Technology) contracts reached $11.3353 million in 24 hours, and the trading volume of Gate SKHYNIX (SK Hynix) contracts reached $3.9042 million in 24 hours, both ranking among the industry leaders, with the trading heat of related assets continuing to rise.

According to the Financial Times, Intel (INTC.O) plans to launch an artificial intelligence chip by the end of the year, which will use cheaper memory and cooling technologies than competitors from Nvidia and AMD.

Glassnode disclosed the latest on-chain data showing that the Bitcoin spot trading volume difference (7-day moving average) has re-entered a sustained negative range. As the Bitcoin price fell back to around $73,000, the market experienced significant selling pressure accelerating, with sellers continuing to dominate the spot market, and the pressure of chip distribution is gradually accumulating.Recently, during the process of Bitcoin falling back from above $80,000 to around $75,000, spot demand, ETF fund inflows, and volatility expectations have all continued to weaken. Although market positions have been somewhat reset, investor confidence remains limited, presenting an overall cautious wait-and-see attitude.

Some high-end graphics cards, servers, and other products are gradually landing in JD's self-operated channels. According to JD's data, since May 14, the attention on "NVIDIA" H200 related chips and server workstation equipment launched on JD's platform has significantly increased, with the search volume for NVIDIA H200 related chips increasing 25 times year-on-year, and the search volume for NVIDIA H200 related servers and workstations increasing over 40 times year-on-year.

According to a report by Reuters, the United States has approved the sale of Nvidia H200 AI chips to about 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, but no chips have been delivered yet, and the related transactions are at a standstill.The report pointed out that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined the delegation during President Trump's visit to China, trying to promote the sale of H200 chips in China. The U.S. Department of Commerce has also approved some distributors, such as Lenovo and Foxconn, to directly purchase and resell the chips. However, due to strict security, usage, revenue sharing, and legal restrictions imposed by the U.S. on H200 exports, there are conflicts with China's supply chain security policies, leading to stricter order approvals.

According to The Information, OpenAI plans to invest over $20 billion in servers powered by Cerebras chips over the next three years. It is reported that as part of the agreement, OpenAI will also acquire equity in Cerebras.Cerebras is known to be an American company specializing in AI chips and computing systems, primarily providing hardware and infrastructure for AI training and AI inference scenarios.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin (@EmberCN), after the SIREN market maker sold off dispersed chips at the beginning of the month, they have re-acquired the chips and increased their token control ratio to over 93%. There has been a resurgence of intense market operations, with SIREN recently rising by 185%, with the price rebounding from a previous low of $0.13 to $2.18.

Three sources revealed that Anthropic is exploring the possibility of designing its own chips. This plan is still in the early stages, and Anthropic may ultimately decide to only procure AI chips instead of designing them in-house. Another source indicated that Anthropic has not yet determined a specific design plan and has not yet assembled a dedicated team for the project.

Crypto analyst Murphy posted on the X platform reviewing the market dynamics of the past week. Monitoring shows unusual capital flows for Bitcoin: when BTC rebounded to $70,000-$71,000, a group of whale addresses (each holding over 1,000 BTC) sold 24,867 BTC and 17,818 BTC respectively. The average loss on the sold chips compared to their cost reached 50%, while the loss on the sold chips was less than 10%. Analysis shows that these chips originated from low purchases in May-July 2025 and early April, with part of them being sold off after significant losses, and another part being rotated out after precise bottom fishing.Strategy bought 22,337 BTC again on March 17, absorbing most of the excess supply. Nevertheless, this event reflects that market sentiment remains extremely fragile, and investors holding BTC for nearly a year are gradually losing patience. Future price rebounds may still trigger pressure from loss-making chips.

Musk stated that SpaceX AI and Tesla (TSLA.O) are expected to continue large-scale orders of NVIDIA (NVDA.O) chips.