Japan chipmaking equipment suppliers report 10% drop in China sales

Japan's top five manufacturers of Chipmaking equipment, Tokyo Electron, Advantest, Screen Holdings, Disco, and Kokusai Electric, reported a 10% decline in combined sales to China for the year ended March 31, marking the first-ever decrease.

The decline is a result of Beijing's efforts to promote its Homegrown industry, with Chinese players taking market share not only from Japanese companies but European and American rivals as well. Semiconductor equipment is a field where Japanese companies have maintained their competitiveness.

As Chinese companies rise in Chipmaking, following Taiwan and South Korea, they are also beginning to seize market share in manufacturing equipment. Major European and American companies such as ASML Holding, Applied Materials, and Kla are also struggling in China.

According to international industry group SEMI, China's equipment market, which accounts for 37% of the global market, remained flat in 2025 at $49.3 billion compared with $49.6 billion in 2024.

The market size leveled off because Chinese manufacturers had scrambled to invest before U.S.-China trade tensions impacted their operations.

Sales declined for Japanese, American, and European manufacturers as a result of the growth of local manufacturers.

Chinese chipmakers had been expanding their semiconductor fabrication facilities by purchasing manufacturing equipment from Japan, the U.S., and Europe.

Reference Sources

1. nikkei - Japan chipmaking equipment suppliers report 10% drop in China sales

US Scientist John Jumper to Leave Google DeepMind for Anthropic

John Jumper, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on artificial intelligence, is leaving Google DeepMind to join Anthropic PBC.

He has been a key member of Google’s AI coding development team and his departure further strains the tech giant’s efforts to beat Anthropic, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the race to build the most powerful AI models.

Google has struggled to sell AI coding tools to businesses, according to former employees. Employees and executives at DeepMind have also raised concerns in recent months that the company doesn’t have a clear solution for businesses seeking AI coding tools, which have become a key focus of Anthropic and OpenAI and have driven both companies’ momentum in recent months. Jumper is best known as the Co-Creator of AlphaFold, a breakthrough AI that has predicted over 200 million protein structures, cutting years off biological and medical research. Technology giants including Meta and Alphabet, along with AI startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI, are locked in a fierce talent war, competing for elite researchers as they race to build next-generation AI systems.

There is so much demand for limited AI research talent that the frontier AI research labs are willing to do whatever it takes to add them.

Reference Sources

1. bloomberg - Nobel Winner John Jumper to Leave Google DeepMind for Anthropic
2. aawsat - US Scientist John Jumper to Leave Google DeepMind for Anthropic
3. techcrunch - Nobel laureate John Jumper is leaving DeepMind for rival Anthropic

Google, FBI target Chinese scammers using Gemini AI for fake sites

Tech giant Google has joined forces with the FBI to dismantle a Chinese Cybercrime syndicate known as "outsider enterprise" after the group allegedly used Google's own Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) to create fraudulent websites and swindle users out of millions of dollars.

Google has filed a lawsuit against the gang, accusing them of replicating official Google and YouTube interfaces to deceive unsuspecting users.

The scam revolved around a software package dubbed "Phishing-For-Dummies" developed by the syndicate. By leveraging the capabilities of GEMINI ai, the Fraudsters generated nearly 9,000 Lookalike Websites targeting Google platforms and various government agencies, with Google revealing it has uncovered over 1 million URLs linked to the group.

The Cyber campaign also targeted Android users through a massive SMS Phishing blitz. Over the past two weeks, approximately 2.5 million text messages containing links to these malicious sites were blasted to mobile devices, triggering a massive wave of Spam reports from consumers.

The sheer scale of the operation forced major US telecommunications carriers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, to coordinate with Google and request assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to take down the syndicate's network infrastructure.

Reference Sources

1. bangkokpost - Google, FBI target Chinese scammers using Gemini AI for fake sites

The CommonWealth English daily news digest is a service curated by CommonWealth English team with the help of AI tools.  

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