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By Che Pan and Brenda Goh BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on Friday said surging memory chip prices have raised the cost of making handsets, after pricing of its new Redmi K90 series drew market disappointment. "Cost pressure has transferred to the pricing of our new products," President Lu Weibing wrote on Weibo. "Rising costs of memory chips are far beyond expectations and could intensify." Xiaomi launched its entry-level Redmi K90 on Thursday with the base model, equipped with 12 GB of memory and 256 GB of storage, priced from 2,599 yuan ($364). That compared with 2,499 yuan for the base model of predecessor K80 series launched in November 2024. Lu noted consumer disappointment about price gaps between configurations. He said Xiaomi will lower the price of the most in-demand K90 model – with 12 GB memory and 512 GB storage – by 300 yuan to 2,899 yuan for the first month of sales. A global rush for chips for use in artificial intelligence applications has tightened supply of conventional chips used in smartphones, personal computers and servers, sharply increasing their cost and boosting earnings for makers of NAND and DRAM such as South Korean duo Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. ($1 = 7.1230 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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By Che Pan and Brenda Goh BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on Friday said surging memory chip prices have raised the cost of making handsets, after pricing of its new Redmi K90 series drew market disappointment. "Cost pressure has transferred to the pricing of our new products," President Lu Weibing wrote on Weibo. "Rising costs of memory chips are far beyond expectations and could intensify." Xiaomi launched its entry-level Redmi K90 on Thursday with the base model, equipped with 12 GB of memory and 256 GB of storage, priced from 2,599 yuan ($364). That compared with 2,499 yuan for the base model of predecessor K80 series launched in November 2024. Lu noted consumer disappointment about price gaps between configurations. He said Xiaomi will lower the price of the most in-demand K90 model – with 12 GB memory and 512 GB storage – by 300 yuan to 2,899 yuan for the first month of sales. A global rush for chips for use in artificial intelligence applications has tightened supply of conventional chips used in smartphones, personal computers and servers, sharply increasing their cost and boosting earnings for makers of NAND and DRAM such as South Korean duo Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. ($1 = 7.1230 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Che Pan and Brenda Goh BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi on Friday said surging memory chip prices have raised the cost of making handsets, after pricing of its new Redmi K90 series drew market disappointment. "Cost pressure has transferred to the pricing of our new products," President Lu Weibing wrote on Weibo. "Rising costs of memory chips are far beyond expectations and could intensify." Xiaomi launched its entry-level Redmi K90 on Thursday with the base model, equipped with 12 GB of memory and 256 GB of storage, priced from 2,599 yuan ($364). That compared with 2,499 yuan for the base model of predecessor K80 series launched in November 2024. Lu noted consumer disappointment about price gaps between configurations. He said Xiaomi will lower the price of the most in-demand K90 model – with 12 GB memory and 512 GB storage – by 300 yuan to 2,899 yuan for the first month of sales. A global rush for chips for use in artificial intelligence applications has tightened supply of conventional chips used in smartphones, personal computers and servers, sharply increasing their cost and boosting earnings for makers of NAND and DRAM such as South Korean duo Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. ($1 = 7.1230 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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By Naomi Rovnick LONDON (Reuters) -Major investors, spooked by AI exuberance yet wary of betting against it, are shifting from hyped-up stocks into potential next-in-line winners, reviving a strategy from the 1990s dotcom era that helped some sidestep the crash. As U.S. stocks have hit successive records and AI chipmaker Nvidia's valuation has surged beyond $4 trillion, professional investors have been trying to find ways to make money from the bull market while avoiding excessive risk. Some are looking back to the 1990s internet boom, which spread from startups to telecoms and tech, and where hedge funds rode the wave by flipping out of highly-valued stocks before they peaked and picking others that had room to rise. "What we are doing is what worked from 1998 to 2000," said Francesco Sandrini, multi-asset head and Italy CIO at Europe’s largest asset manager Amundi. He highlighted signs of irrational exuberance on Wall Street, such as frenzied trading in risky options pegged to the share prices of big AI stocks. But he said he expected the new tech enthusiasm to continue and hoped to bank gains via bets on reasonably valued assets that might rally next. Sandrini said this involved trying to find "the highest growth opportunities that so far the market had failed to spot", with moves into software groups, robotics and Asian tech. Other investors also expected to edge out of Wall Street's Magnificent Seven stocks after shares in Nvidia more than tripled in two years, but want to keep their diversification within the AI sphere. ASSET MANAGERS NEED TO BE NIMBLE TO RIDE THE WAVE "The odds of this (AI boom) being a bust are very high because you've got companies spending trillions and all fighting for the same market that does not yet exist," said Goshawk Asset Management CIO Simon Edelsten, who worked on telecom IPOs at stockbroker Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in London in 1999. He expected the next phase of AI fever to spread from Nvidia and others like Microsoft and Alphabet into related sectors. Timing the phases of a bubble has historically been a way to play it without the risk of trying to call the peak too early. A study by economists Markus Brunnermeir and Stefan Nagel showed that hedge funds mostly did not bet against the dotcom bubble, but rode it skillfully enough to beat the market by about 4.5% per quarter from 1998-2000 and avoid the worst of the downturn. They shed high-priced internet stocks in time to recycle profits into others before they caught the attention of less sophisticated investors. "There were good profits to be made for the fleet of foot even during 2000 when the top came," Edelsten at Goshawk said, adding the current market environment was similar to 1999. He favoured IT consultants and Japanese robotics groups that can potentially pick up revenues from AI heavyweights, in what he said was the typical chronology of a market gold rush. "When someone strikes gold, (you) buy the local hardware store where the prospectors will buy all their shovels." INVESTORS TRY TO STAY IN AI WITHOUT EXCESSIVE RISK Investors are also attempting to benefit from the trillions of dollars so-called hyperscalers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet are committing to AI data centres and advanced chips without taking on more direct exposure to these companies. Fidelity International multi-asset manager Becky Qin said uranium was her favoured new AI trade because power-hungry AI data centres could gobble up nuclear energy. Kevin Thozet, investment committee member at asset manager Carmignac, was taking profits on Magnificent Seven stocks and building up a position in Taiwan's Gudeng Precision, which makes delivery boxes for AI chipmakers including TSMC. Asset managers are also concerned that the rush to build data centres could result in overcapacity, as in the fiber-optic cable boom in the telecoms industry. "In any new technological paradigm we don't get from A to B without excesses along the way," said Pictet Asset Management senior multi-asset strategist Arun Sai. Even though top AI stocks like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet are being powered by strong earnings, he still sees "the building blocks of a bubble" and favours Chinese stocks as a hedge if rapid AI advancements in China sap Wall Street's AI enthusiasm. Some investors, though, do not favour this relative value approach to AI investing as a way to mitigate future losses. Oliver Blackbourn, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, said he was hedging his U.S. tech positions with European and healthcare assets lest an AI stock crash takes the U.S. economy down with it. He said it was impossible to forecast how long the AI craze would roll on because calling the peak was usually only possible with hindsight. "We're in 1999 until the bubble pops." (Reporting by Naomi Rovnick; editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Jane Merriman)

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By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A subsidiary of Chinese battery company Gotion has abandoned a plan to build a $2.4 billion plant in Michigan to produce key materials for electric vehicle batteries, the state said on Thursday. The plan, first announced in October 2022, was expected to create 2,350 factory jobs but came under criticism from some lawmakers for the company's Chinese ownership. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) said none of a $125 million state grant for the project was ever disbursed and it will pursue repayment of another $23.6 million state award that went toward purchase of the property. Germany's Volkswagen is the largest single shareholder in Gotion Inc's parent company, owning about 30% of Gotion High-Tech. U.S. lawmakers said last month China maintains "effective control" through multiple individual shareholders. Gotion Inc's head of corporate and public affairs, Benjamin Howes, would not address specific questions on the plant but said in a statement the firm "remains firmly committed to its mission of driving America's clean energy future" including at a plant in Illinois. Volkswagen was not available to comment. In March 2024, Gotion sued Green Township in Michigan for allegedly breaching an agreement to build the plant. The MEDC last month sent Gotion a letter saying it was in default on its grant agreement because there had been no actions on the project site in more than 120 days. The state had given Gotion 30 days to resolve the default. A lawyer acting for Gotion Inc said in a letter to the MEDC seen by Reuters that it was "utterly false" to accuse the company of abandoning the project. He added because of a "barrage of attacks that Gotion has had to endure at this site" and Green Township's opposition, that a better course of action was to suspend the default for six months to have "an open and candid discussion about the viability of the project and the long-term plan for this site." Over the last year, Americans' waning enthusiasm for electric cars led automakers to delay or scrap factory projects. After recent EV policy changes by the Trump administration, automakers are further retrenching. Representative John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs a select committee on China, praised the withdrawal of state support for the project. He had worked with residents in Green Township to oppose the project and bar U.S. government subsidies for Chinese-affiliated battery companies like Gotion. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by James Pomfret in Hong Kong; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Christopher Cushing)

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(Reuters) -Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue just shy of estimates on Thursday, but beat expectations for September-quarter profit as CEO Lip-Bu Tan's drastic cost-cutting measures helped the chipmaker shore up its finances amid a slew of high-profile investments in the company.  This marks the Santa Clara, California-based company's first earnings announcement after multibillion-dollar investments from Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank as well as an unprecedented U.S. government stake, with investors anticipating a major cash boost.  The investments are expected to be a major lifeline for Intel, which has been struggling to maintain its dominance in the PC and server central processing unit markets as it competes with Advanced Micro Devices, while repeated attempts to break into the AI chip market commanded by Nvidia have not produced results.  After its share price dropped about 60% last year due to these concerns, Intel stock has risen nearly 90% so far in 2025 thanks to the new investments in the company, helping it outperform the stock of artificial-intelligence chip leader and Wall Street darling Nvidia.  Nvidia said last month it would invest $5 billion in Intel, giving it a stake of about 4% after new shares are issued. In August, Intel secured $2 billion from SoftBank. After U.S. President Donald Trump called for CEO Tan's resignation over China ties, a hastily arranged Washington meeting produced an unusual deal involving the U.S. government taking a 10% stake for $8.9 billion.  For the September quarter, it recorded adjusted gross margins of 40%, beating estimates of 35.7%, while adjusted profit of 23 cents per share also outperformed expectations of a profit of 1 cent per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.  The company will end the year with a workforce that is over one-fifth smaller than last year, it had said in July, while Tan has significantly pared back the expensive manufacturing ambitions of his ousted predecessor, Pat Gelsinger. Tan has aggressively cut costs and divested assets, after Gelsinger's ambitions of turning Intel into a contract manufacturer of chips that would compete against Taiwan's TSMC led to the company in 2024 recording its first annual loss since 1986.  Intel forecast current-quarter revenue between $12.8 billion and $13.8 billion, with a midpoint of $13.3 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $13.37 billion. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru and Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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By Gram Slattery and Chris Prentice WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump has pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the convicted founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, the White House said Thursday, in the latest move by Trump to boost the crypto industry and expunge its past misdeeds.  Zhao, a billionaire known as "CZ" who is one of the most influential figures in crypto, quit in 2023 as Binance chief after the company pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and paid a penalty of $4.3 billion.  Zhao was prosecuted by the Biden administration "in their war on cryptocurrency," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. Since he returned to office, Trump's family has reaped millions of dollars from a variety of crypto ventures – moves criticized by political rivals and ethics experts citing the potential for conflicts of interest. The White House has denied those claims and on Thursday Leavitt said it carefully examined all pardons. In a post on social media platform X, Zhao said he was "deeply grateful for today’s pardon and to President Trump for upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice." He added: "Will do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto." FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON U.S. authorities said in 2023 that Binance had failed to report suspicious transactions with organizations including Hamas and al Qaeda and with websites dedicated to selling child sexual abuse materials. Zhao, a citizen of Canada who was born in China, personally paid a $50 million fine and served nearly four months in prison last year after pleading guilty to the same charge as his company.  However, he kept his Binance stake, while one of his appointees was made chief executive.  "I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility," Zhao said when he stepped down. The full and unconditional pardon could pave the way for him to return to the business he co-founded in 2017. It may also offer the chance for Binance to expand in the United States as the crypto industry booms under the Trump administration. A spokesperson for Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volumes, thanked Trump for his leadership. News of the pardon, which Zhao told a podcaster in May he had been seeking, was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The U.S. Constitution gives the president broad power to issue pardons to wipe away federal criminal convictions, or commutations to modify sentences. Historically, presidents have largely waited until the end of their terms to use such powers, but there is no requirement that they do so. During his second term, Trump has made sweeping use of his clemency powers and Zhao's is the latest in a series of pardons that Trump has granted to crypto executives and entrepreneurs, as well as others convicted of white-collar crimes.  The crypto sector poured money into Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, during which the Republican candidate promised to end what he called a crackdown by the Biden administration on the industry. SUPPORT FOR WORLD LIBERTY FINANCIAL Binance itself this year offered support to one of the Trump family's crypto ventures, World Liberty Financial. In May, Binance accepted World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin as payment for a $2 billion investment in the exchange by Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX. Binance's decision to accept USD1, which was launched only in March, provided a big boost to the World Liberty venture, and still accounts for most of the USD1 in circulation. Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who previously criticized the MGX deal, said on Thursday: "First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge. Then he boosted one of Donald Trump’s crypto ventures and lobbied for a pardon. Today, Donald Trump did his part and pardoned him." A spokesperson for Binance declined to comment on Warren's criticism. In March, the president pardoned the three co-founders of crypto exchange BitMEX who had pleaded guilty in 2022 for failing to implement a Bank Secrecy Act-compliant anti-money laundering program. Trump also pardoned in January Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running the underground online marketplace Silk Road but remained a popular figure within the crypto community.     Outside crypto, Trump has pardoned the founder of electric truck company Nikola, who was convicted of fraud, and commuted the sentence of the executive behind the now-defunct startup Ozy Media.  On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned approximately 1,500 individuals charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Reporting by Gram Slattery and Chris Prentice; additional reporting by Luc Cohen and Hannah Lang in New York; writing by Tom Wilson; editing by Rami Ayyub, Doina Chiacu, Michelle Price, and Daniel Wallis)

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By Arsheeya Bajwa, Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis (Reuters) -Intel beat expectations for September-quarter profit as CEO Lip-Bu Tan's drastic cost-cutting measures helped the chipmaker shore up its finances amid a slew of high-profile investments in the company. Shares jumped roughly 5% in after-hours trading.   This marks the Santa Clara, California-based company's first earnings announcement after multibillion-dollar investments from Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank as well as an unprecedented U.S. government stake, with investors anticipating a major cash boost.  Intel received the SoftBank money in the third quarter but has not yet received Nvidia's cash, finance chief Dave Zinsner said in an interview with Reuters. The investments are expected to be a major lifeline for Intel, which has been struggling to maintain its dominance in the PC and server central processing unit markets as it competes with Advanced Micro Devices, while repeated attempts to break into the AI chip market commanded by Nvidia have not produced results.  After its share price dropped about 60% last year due to these concerns, Intel stock has risen nearly 90% so far in 2025 thanks to the new investments in the company, helping it outperform the stock of artificial-intelligence chip leader and Wall Street darling Nvidia.  Nvidia said last month it would invest $5 billion in Intel, giving it a stake of about 4% after new shares are issued. In August, Intel secured $2 billion from SoftBank. After U.S. President Donald Trump called for CEO Tan's resignation over China ties, a hastily arranged Washington meeting produced an unusual deal involving the U.S. government taking a 10% stake for $8.9 billion.  Demand for Intel's chips was strong enough during the third quarter that the company is tight on supply, Zinsner said. One of the factors is that data center operators have realized that they need to upgrade the central processor (CPU) in order to keep pace with the advanced AI chips, he said. Upgrading the CPU gives power and performance advantages that help build and run AI applications. "We're under shipping demand at this point, which I guess is a high-class problem," Zinsner said. For the September quarter, it recorded adjusted gross margins of 40%, beating estimates of 35.7%, while adjusted profit of 23 cents per share also outperformed expectations of a profit of 1 cent per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.  The company will end the year with a workforce that is over one-fifth smaller than last year, it had said in July, while Tan has significantly pared back the expensive manufacturing ambitions of his ousted predecessor, Pat Gelsinger. Tan has aggressively cut costs and divested assets, after Gelsinger's ambitions of turning Intel into a contract manufacturer of chips that would compete against Taiwan's TSMC led to the company in 2024 recording its first annual loss since 1986.  Intel forecast current-quarter revenue between $12.8 billion and $13.8 billion, with a midpoint of $13.3 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $13.37 billion. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru and Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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