China's Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics (CIOMP) is offering "uncapped" salaries to PhD researchers as the nation races to develop domestic semiconductor lithography capabilities amid escalating US technology restrictions

These are the most-read DIGITIMES Asia stories from the week of March 10 – March 15

Baidu Inc. released a new artificial intelligence model that articulates its reasoning, in an apparent bid to regain momentum against up-and-coming rivals like DeepSeek

Since President Trump took office, China has come to view the US with increasing skepticism, prompting the Chinese government to implement several countermeasures in response to perceived US hostility

At the beginning of 2025, the US Department of Defense blacklisted China's lithium battery leader, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), followed by US President Donald Trump imposing a 20% tariff on Chinese products, including lithium batteries. Recently, the US further prevented the US Department of Homeland Security from purchasing batteries manufactured by Chinese companies

On March 6, 2025, China's AI scene is brimming with confidence, with some media even suggesting that domestic firms could outpace OpenAI. Newcomer Manus is being positioned as a rival to DeepSeek, but whether it has the technological depth to back up the hype remains an open question. Flashy marketing alone won't close the gap

Recently, AMD held a launch event in China for its latest GPU product, the Radeon RX 9070 series, highlighting its commitment to the Chinese market. The introduction of DeepSeek enhances the commercial applications of AI in the edge and endpoint markets, providing AMD with a unique competitive advantage compared to Nvidia

Samsung Electronics is considering a major overhaul of its semiconductor division as Exynos chip losses mount. Reports suggest the company may transfer its Exynos application processor (AP) division from System LSI, under the Device Solutions (DS) unit, to the Mobile eXperience (MX) division within Device eXperience (DX). This shift would follow Apple's model, giving Samsung's mobile division full control over chip development to enhance integration and performance

Alibaba's Qwen (Tongyi Qianwen) and the emerging AI agent Manus have recently announced a strategic partnership, generating buzz across the artificial intelligence sector. This collaboration seeks to combine their expertise in large-scale language models and computational platforms specifically catered to the Chinese market. Together, they aim to create a versatile AI agent product tailored for domestic users. Technical teams from both companies are actively working together to advance this initiative

On the evening of March 12, Lens Technology announced plans to issue overseas foreign-listed shares (H-shares) and seek a listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE). The move is aimed at expanding its global market reach, enhancing its international brand image, and strengthening its overall competitiveness, following extensive research and evaluation

Naura Technology, which has been actively acquiring and restructuring since 2015, is gradually assembling a comprehensive supply chain system for domestic semiconductor equipment in China. The most advanced lithography machines are the final missing link in determining whether the entire industry chain can be connected

ByteDance's Doubao AI team has open-sourced COMET, a Mixture of Experts (MoE) optimization framework that improves large language model (LLM) training efficiency while reducing costs. Already integrated into ByteDance's 10,000+ GPU clusters, COMET has saved millions of GPU compute hours

After China-based Centre Testing International Group (CTI) acquired a 51% stake in Microtek Changzhou, a move aimed at enhancing CTI's service capabilities in the PCB and CCL industries, CTI Taiwan will now offer more comprehensive testing services to Taiwan's PCB and CCL sectors, including environmental simulation testing, failure analysis, electrical performance testing, environmental reliability testing, and physical performance testing

Samsung Electronics has reportedly begun developing a next-generation packaging material, the "glass interposer," a move aimed at replacing the costly silicon interposers currently used in semiconductor manufacturing. This shift is expected to not only reduce production costs but also enhance overall product performance