AI Boom Reshapes Tech Landscape: Samsung’s Chip Windfall and Global IT Job Market Disruption

Hello, this is Kenji in Tokyo, your host this week for the latest edition of #techAsia.

Like many other places, people here are hooked on the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off last weekend. Personally, Monday’s early morning opener for team Japan was a great way to start a new week, with Samurai Blue catching up twice and eventually securing a draw against the Netherlands, a higher-ranking rival.

The time zone difference between Japan and North America means watching these matches live often involves some pretty crazy hours, but seeing top-notch players representing their respective countries in a peaceful sporting event feels like a breath of fresh air, when the real world is mired in deadly wars and geopolitical rivalries.

Not that the World Cup is immune from all that, of course, with the Iranian team, for example, being rushed out of the U.S. shortly after their match.

While the U.S. and Iran have reportedly signed some sort of a deal aimed at ending the conflict between the two countries, Washington has not yet released the details of the agreement, and much remains uncertain about how things stand between the two sides. The impact of the agreement on global energy markets also remains to be seen.

Where Japan stands and how to deal with its largest neighbor China in this uncertain world was one of the key topics at a number of recent conferences I attended. I am unable to report them in detail, as they are governed by various ground rules, such as the Chatham House Rule, but the discussions with politicians, scholars, NGO members and more were quite thought-provoking.

One political heavyweight shared a very candid diagnosis on how behind Japan is in the global artificial intelligence race, as well as his thoughts on how to balance its relations with traditional security ally the U.S. and ever-expanding regional powerhouse China.

Another topic was the emerging concept of “geocriminality.”

Originally developed by Martin Thorley, senior analyst at Swiss-based civil society group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, it is currently defined as “state-directed instrumentalization of organized crime and criminal actors to achieve foreign and domestic objectives.” But that definition is evolving as new incidents are discussed, analyzed and digested.

I was a panelist at a two-day symposium sponsored by this group in Tokyo, where cases and interpretations were brought up and debated. While I provided what I could, the wide-ranging discussion on various aspects of geocriminality was really eye-opening, and I gained a lot out of it. Many of the cases introduced by other panelists from around the world gave me a renewed understanding of China’s growing influence in the region and the world on this front as well.

One fundamental factor behind the rise of geocriminality is the role of the latest technology. The enhanced ease of cross-border connectivity and communication, accompanied by easy and cheap methods of transferring money across jurisdictions, sometimes anonymously, have been key enablers of illicit state-linked actors to engage in various forms of geocriminal activities.

The emergence of new technology always brings about unintended consequences.

Filling the gap

Samsung Electronics is emerging as a latest beneficiary of an increasing shortage of advanced chipmaking capacity worldwide, as AI-driven demands continue to surge. Nikkei Asia’s tech reporters in Taipei, Hong Kong and Seoul — Cheng Ting-Fang, Lauly Li, Cissy Zhou and Kim Jaewon — collaborated for this scoop about how major tech players such as BYD, Google, AMD and Tesla are scrambling for alternatives to fill the gap created by TSMC’s strained production capacity.

According to multiple sources, Samsung has been seeing a rise in inquiries from both existing and potential global customers in search of advanced chip manufacturing capacity. This is a big win for the South Korean chipmaker’s foundry business, which used to mainly serve its own consumer electronics and home appliance divisions.

“Samsung’s yields still lag behind TSMC’s,” said an executive from a Chinese auto chip designer, who asked not to be named. However, under the current circumstance, “capacity availability has made it an increasingly attractive option.”

Securing capacity at TSMC is tough for certain Chinese clients, who have smaller volumes to place new orders. “Several have turned to approach Samsung for future possibilities,” said an executive-level chip industry source who is familiar with the matter.

Ready for anything

Seven years after U.S. sanctions were seen as a death sentence for Huawei, the Chinese tech titan is attempting a monumental comeback, though major hurdles remain before it can claim victory, write the Financial Times’ Zijing Wu and Eleanor Olcott.

Led by its semiconductor chief He Tingbo, the company is fighting to shatter assumptions that export controls would permanently cap China’s chip industry at the 7-nanometer level, two generations behind Nvidia’s most advanced chips.

At a recent Shanghai conference, He unveiled a logic-stacking technology designed to overcome restrictions on accessing foreign lithography tools by layering circuits to boost power. However, the tech faces steep challenges, including overheating issues and low manufacturing yields. While slated for use in smartphone chips this year, it won’t be ready for complex data-center AI processors until 2030.

To bridge this gap, Huawei is linking hundreds of weaker chips into massive computing clusters. Although domestic demand has surged, production capacity at domestic foundries like SMIC is currently limited. Huawei has yet to fully achieve independence, but it has convinced the industry it is firmly on track.

Job killer

While surging demand for AI is creating new chip orders for Samsung, it has started to destroy IT jobs in South Asia.

Islamabad-based contributing writer Adnan Aamir reports for Nikkei Asia that growth in IT-related freelance exports in Pakistan is showing signs of deceleration, as “rise of AI tools is reshaping global demand for certain categories of freelance work, particularly entry-level content writing, basic design and data entry, where Pakistani freelancers have historically been strong,” according to Imran Batada, president and CEO of the Pakistan Freelancers Association.

Nikkei Asia’s This Chakraborty reports from India, the largest exporter of IT-related services, on Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian’s remarks about the American home-buying platform operator closing its two offices after less than two years in the country, saying it has “hired small, AI-native customer-facing teams throughout the U.S.”

Even more damning was comments from Tata Consultancy Services Chairman N. Chandrasekaran, who said India’s largest software exporter is set to slow its hiring due to the advancement of AI.

More species, more medicines

New species of plants, animals and other organisms are being discovered at a record pace, Nikkei’s Yasuki Okamoto reports, and this is raising excitement about the possibility of fresh breakthroughs in medicine.

A study tracking a period of over two and a half centuries up to 2020 points to a steady rise in species discoveries after 2009, according to researchers at the University of Arizona in the U.S. and Shanxi University in China. While the figure dipped in 2019, the long-term upward trend continued, challenging the previous view that new species discoveries peaked in the early 1900s.

This opens new windows for new medicines. Take, for example, Satoshi Omura, the Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine in 2015, who discovered a soil-dwelling actinomycete bacterium that was later used to develop ivermectin, a blockbuster antiparasitic drug.

About 2.5 million species have been described on Earth, but scientists believe many more remain unknown. The discovery of new species carries great potential in bringing immeasurable benefits to humanity.

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