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Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Apple announces its big annual conference, where it could reveal its AI strategy

Apple announces its big annual conference, where it could reveal its AI strategy

The WWDC stage, an hour before showtime.

“Apple on Tuesday announced that its annual developers conference, WWDC, will take place June 10 through June 14.

The conference will be livestreamed on Apple’s website, although the company is inviting some software makers to its campus on the first day to “celebrate in person,” Apple said.

At this year’s conference, Apple could reveal its long-awaited artificial intelligence strategy and consumer features. In February, Cook said Apple was “investing significantly” in AI and teased an AI-related announcement “later this year” that many analysts believe will come at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apple typically reveals the latest versions of its iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV software at WWDC via a “keynote” video on the first day, led by CEO Tim Cook and other Apple staff, which is also streamed on YouTube. At some past conferences, the company has also revealed new professional-oriented hardware, such as Mac laptops.

At this year’s conference, Apple also plans to reveal the first major software update to the Vision Pro, the virtual reality headset it launched earlier this year.

  • Insiders at these companies including Meta and Coinbase are dumping stock during rally
  • Friday, March 22, 2024

    Trump Media merger faces legal challenges as deal nears crucial vote - The Washington Post

    Trump Media, launched after an insurrection, faces rebellion of its own

    "Four lawsuits involving the founding boosters of Truth Social threaten to erode former president Donald Trump’s grasp on a massive financial haul

    Donald Trump, seen through a television camera in 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

    When former president Donald Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group and its proposed merger partner, Digital World Acquisition, announced last month a shareholder vote on their long-delayed deal, it marked a final step for the owner of Truth Social to become a public company potentially worth billions of dollars — most of which is owned by Trump himself.

    But in the lead-up to Friday’s vote, both companies have been rocked by legal warfare. Their leaders, past and present, have traded heated accusations of deception and impropriety across four lawsuits in three states. And the cases threaten to erode Trump’s grasp on a stake in the post-merger company potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars — a possible financial lifeline, given that he owes more than $500 million in legal fines.

    After Trump was booted from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, three men played pivotal roles in building and promoting Trump Media as an online challenger against the “cancel culture” of Big Tech: Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, former “Apprentice” contestants who co-founded the company and launched Truth Social; and Patrick Orlando, who as chief executive of Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, offered Trump’s company a path to investor cash.

    But all three are now leading a rebellion of their own, confronting and potentially imperiling a trophy of Trump’s post-presidential ambitions. Their lawsuits call into question how Trump Media’s shares will be distributed, and a legal victory could chip away at Trump’s equity during a time when he is facing a cash crunch.

    Follow Election 2024

    The litigation won’t stop Friday’s shareholder meeting, during which Digital World has said it will announce whether a majority of investors voted to approve the merger. But the hundreds of pages of legal filings in the four cases offer clues to answers for some long-running questions about the companies’ inner workings and expose details of the turmoil that has characterized efforts to create a pro-Trump internet empire.

    In the most recent lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a New York state court, Digital World asked a judge to force Orlando to vote in support of the merger, saying he could tank the deal by not voting shares owned by a company he controls — Digital World’s biggest founding investor, Arc Global Investments II.

    “The merger vote is now less than one week away … and yet, Arc refuses to lodge its vote,” Digital World attorneys said in the complaint. If Digital World “fails to effectuate a merger, it will be forced to dissolve. Urgent relief is required by March 22 to avert such harm.”

    Usha Rodrigues, a University of Georgia law professor who studies SPACs, said the level of turmoil was unusual for a deal like this. A merger vote, she said, is “typically a nonevent” because investors just want it to get done.

    “SPAC mergers typically do not go like this,” she said. But “this whole process has been idiosyncratic, as everything has been with this SPAC.”

    Trump Media attorney Jesse Binnall said in a statement Thursday, “These allegations simply add to the heap of false claims, defamation, and fake news about Truth Social for which the Washington Post is already being sued.”

    Representatives for Trump’s presidential campaign, Digital World, Arc, Orlando, Litinsky and Moss did not respond to requests for comment.

    The merger vote will be widely watched by observers of Trump’s finances. If the deal is approved, Trump would own about 60 percent of the post-merger company, a stake that at Digital World’s current price would be worth more than $3 billion.

    That money could eventually go toward Trump’s high-profile legal penalties. He failed to finance an appeal bond for more than $450 million to cover a judgment in the New York attorney general’s business fraud case against him, his attorneys said Monday, citing “insurmountable difficulties.”

    A lockup provision in the Trump Media merger agreement, however, would block Trump and other major investors from selling their shares for six months after the merger’s closing date, which could be as soon as Friday — unless Trump gets a waiver from Digital World or the post-merger Trump Media’s leaders allowing him to sell sooner. Such lockup periods are standard provisions in corporate deals, designed to instill confidence in investors that the leaders won’t sell before enough time has passed to see how the company performs.

    Digital World’s stock price dropped this week to a two-month low before rebounding to about $43 — about 15 percent below its peak last month, when the Securities and Exchange Commission allowed the merger deal to proceed.

    After a merger vote, the combined companies would go by Trump Media and trade under a new stock ticker symbol, DJT — Trump’s initials. That symbol was also used for Trump’s only other public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, whose stock plunged from nearly $35 to about 17 cents in less than a decade before the company filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

    Two of the lawsuits, filed last month in Delaware, center on Trump Media’s stock. In one case, Arc sued Digital World, its new chief executive, Eric Swider, and three members of its board, saying they intended to improperly deprive Orlando of millions of previously guaranteed shares.

    In a separate case, Litinsky and Moss sued Trump Media, claiming in a recently unsealed complaint that the company had authorized the issuing of 1 billion new shares of company stock — a move they say would dramatically dilute their stake, from 8.6 percent down to less than 1 percent.

    Attorneys for Litinsky and Moss’s partnership, United Atlantic Ventures, said Trump intended to “use his domination and control” of the company’s board to place some or all of the new shares “in his own hands and those of [people] beholden to him.”

    UAV’s attorneys argued in a motion that the alleged attempt, which Trump Media has disputed, was driven by Trump’s need for cash. The merger “represents a potential (and perhaps existential) liquidity event for Trump, which may explain his last-minute stock grab,” the motion said.

    In their lawsuit, the men reiterated a claim, first reported by The Washington Post in 2022, that Trump had pressured Litinsky to hand over some of his shares to Trump’s wife, Melania. After Litinsky resisted, the lawsuit says, Trump pushed both men out. Trump Media said in 2022 that The Post’s report was based on “concocted psychodramas.”

    In both cases, the judges rejected the plaintiffs’ requests to postpone the merger vote until their cases were resolved. Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III, in the UAV case, and Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will, in the Arc case, said putting the disputed shares into an escrow account, so that the lawsuits’ victors could take them over once the cases are finished, should suffice.

    But both judges have also indicated they would prefer to resolve the disputes within a few months, meaning that the cases could shift the ownership for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of stock before the lockup period ends.

    Digital World has warned investors that Arc could play a show-stopping role in the merger deal. As Digital World’s sponsor, Arc owns about 15 percent of its outstanding stock, including a majority of a stock class known as “founder shares,” according to an SEC filinglast month.

    In the filing, Digital World said its relationship with Orlando had seen a “continued deterioration” and that, if Arc were to withhold votes supporting the merger, it could “lead to our liquidation.”

    In a third lawsuit, filed in New York, Digital World sued to force Arc to vote in favor of the deal, saying Orlando could not hold the vote “hostage for his personal gain.” In a Monday email submitted as an exhibit in the case, Orlando wrote that Arc had been “repeatedly pressed” to vote before the meeting but that “Arc is not going to do that.”

    In a fourth lawsuit, filed in Florida, Trump Media and Digital World returned fire at Arc and Orlando, saying the Miami financier had attempted a “blatant shakedown extortion effort” against the companies to maximize his personal stake.

    An amended complaint Sunday, featuring the names of nine attorneys representing Trump Media and Digital World, alleged that Orlando and Arc’s “self-dealing, irrational and disturbing behavior” had “imposed massive costs” and caused “extensive reputational harm.”

    They want to “extort more compensation in the merger by threatening to destroy it entirely — an existential threat to [Digital World] itself,” the complaint said.

    The complaint blamed Orlando for the SEC investigation that Digital World agreed last year to pay $18 million to settle once the merger deal finalizes. It also alleged that the SEC sent Orlando a letter, known as a Wells notice, indicating that he could face charges for violating securities laws. (The SEC declined to comment.)

    Orlando’s “reckless and irrational behavior,” the complaint said, had included withdrawing $15,000 in cash for unexplained expenses and leaking merger details to the press — an act that was exposed when Orlando “excused himself to take another phone call but forgot to mute the first call.”

    In a video Will Wilkerson sent to the SEC, Digital World and Trump Media executives toast an investment deal on Oct. 26, 2021. (Video: Will Wilkerson)

    The complaint also alleged that Orlando kept invoices and contracts in his personal email account, leading the company to omit multiple vendors from its financial reports. His mismanagement, it said, helped drive the company’s auditor to resign. (Trump Media sued The Post for $3.8 billion last year, saying the news organization had reported incorrectly on allegations concerning its financing. A federal judge in Florida dismissed the case this month but allowed Trump Media to amend its complaint if it believes it can state a viable claim.)

    After Digital World’s board fired Orlando last March as its chief executive, Orlando discouraged people from investing in the company “based on his own personal grievances,” saying it was “his turn to make the life of the new CEO miserable,” the complaint said.

    In recent months, Orlando has refused to resign from the Digital World board — a necessary step to allow for a new post-merger board — unless the company provides him shares and stock options, known as warrants, worth more than $222 million at the time of the lawsuit’s filing, according to the complaint.

    Though Orlando was once a prominent Trump ally, even writing him a birthday letter in 2021 telling Trump he was “unaware of the extent of your brilliance,” the legal claims suggest the dispute has become deeply bitter and personal.

    In the Florida case, a process server handed Orlando the summons papers one afternoon outside a private elementary school in the Miami neighborhood of Coconut Grove, a court filing shows. In a Delaware court hearing earlier this month, one of his attorneys said Orlando had been served when he was “getting off the bus from a field trip with his daughter, in front of her fifth grade class and their parents,” leaving the attorney “so taken aback," according to a hearing transcript.

    Even more facts could come out in the weeks ahead. Orlando posted a photo last month to Truth Social showing him wearing a Truth Social hat with the caption “TRUTH! John 8:32” — a Bible verse that reads, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

    Trump Media merger faces legal challenges as deal nears crucial vote - The Washington Post

    How the Fight Against Apple Could Redefine Antitrust Law

    How the Fight Against Apple Could Redefine Antitrust Law

    “The Justice Department’s lawsuit against the iPhone maker pushes the boundaries of competition rules. Some experts say that may make winning more difficult.

    A man wearing glasses and a dark, checkered suit stands at a lectern in front of another man, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and a woman.
    Justice Department officials, including the antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, foreground, are trying to push the boundaries of regulations with the new lawsuit against Apple.Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

    A shot at Apple’s moneymaker 

    With its antitrust lawsuit against Apple, the Biden administration has joined a growing list of regulators taking on the iPhone giant. But the Justice Department is taking a more ambitious approach than the others by aiming at the company’s tight control of the iPhone ecosystem, which officials say hurts consumers and developers while producing giant profits.

    If successful, the case could upend a business model that has made Apple one of the most profitable companies in history — but victory would require courts to accept a redefinition of decades-old antitrust law.

    Prosecutors zeroed in on Apple’s efforts to lock-in consumers. The Justice Department argues that the company unlawfully restricted competition by blocking key iPhone features to prevent consumers from switching devices.

    Apple is profiting “not by making its own products better, but by making other products worse,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday.

    The lawsuit identified five areas: smart watches, digital wallets, cloud-based gaming, messaging apps — yes, the green-bubble debate is key here — and so-called “super apps” that bundle different programs. (It also suggests that Apple’s behavior affects an even wider array of products, including cars.)

    Apple said the approach amounted to excessive interference in business.“If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect,” a spokeswoman said, adding that it would let the government have a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.

    Regulators globally are already changing how Apple operates. The European Union’s sweeping Digital Markets Act aims to open up iOS and the App Store, and the bloc has also fined the company $2 billion for hampering music-streaming competitors.

    South Korea and the Netherlands have adopted legislation to require app store owners to allow alternative payment systems. (Skeptics say Apple is seeking to undermine those efforts.)

    The new case pushes the boundaries of traditional antitrust policy. That’s in keeping with the stated aim of regulators like Jonathan Kanter, the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, and Lina Khan, the head of the F.T.C.

    “We want to help real people by making sure that our antitrust laws work for workers, work for consumers, work for entrepreneurs and work to protect our democratic values,” Kanter told The Times in January, declining to comment on specific cases.

    But some experts think this lawsuit is a stretch. Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, told DealBook that antitrust policy traditionally hasn’t focused on issues like porting consumer data to different platforms.

    He added that while prosecutors were seeking to help some consumers — those who favor switching devices — the lawsuit could end up hurting others. Users of iOS “derive a lot of value from their closed ecosystem,” he said. “Apple users like the closed ecosystem and the benefits that confers on them.”

    Thursday, March 21, 2024

    The US Sues Apple Over iPhone Competition: What to Know - CNET

    The US Sues Apple Over iPhone Competition: What to Know

    "The Department of Justice says Apple has stifled competition and violated antitrust laws in the name of security.

    The iPhone 15 family lineup

    The US Department of Justice and 16 state attorneys general say Apple has used its industry-defining iPhone to enrich itself while stifling competition.

    James Martin/CNET

    The US Department of Justice and 16 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, saying the company has used its industry-defining iPhone as a tool to enrich itself while stifling competition.

    In an 88-page suit filed in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, the government argued that Apple violated antitrust laws through its tight control over the iPhone, preventing other companies from creating key applications and services that would compete with its own. The result, the government said, is that Apple has kneecapped competition from apps that would offer functionality consumers would benefit from, such as support for a competitor's smartwatch, digital wallet or cross-platform messaging service.

    "We allege that Apple has consolidated its monopoly power, not by making its own products better, but by making other products worse," US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news conference Thursday. He added that Apple's share of the US smartphone market exceeds 65% and that the company maintains its power by creating barriers that "make it extremely difficult and expensive for both users and developers to venture outside the Apple ecosystem."

    Apple denied the government's accusations, saying in a statement that the lawsuit "threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets." The company added that if the suit were to succeed, it would "set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people's technology." 

    "We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it," the company added.

    The US government's lawsuit strikes at the heart of Apple's nearly $3 trillion empire, built off the wild success of its iPhone. Since its introduction 17 years ago, Apple's been able to leverage the iPhone into a powerhouse of industry, powering services like its App Store, which itself has become the lifeblood of multibillion-dollar companies including Uber, Airbnb and Spotify.

    Critics say Apple's success has come at a cost, choking out competitors whose products are unable to compete against Apple's own products and services built around the iPhone's core functionality.

    The lawsuit has the potential to reshape the decisions tech companies can make when creating secondary experiences for the devices they build. The Justice Department cited many examples where it believes this is happening, including video game streaming, cross-platform messaging, smartwatches, web browsers and advertising.

    Here's everything you need to know about the lawsuit so far.

    Not just the US

    The DOJ's lawsuit against Apple is a historic one that will likely have impact far beyond Apple's business practices for many years to come. But it's also the latest in a series of regulatory and legal challenges Apple's faced from governments around the world.

    Most notably, the European Union hit Apple with a landmark $2 billion fine earlier this month, for preventing rival streaming services from telling users about cheaper ways to subscribe outside Apple's App Store.

    More regulation

    There's been a steady drumbeat of increasing regulation aimed at the tech industry over the past few years. 

    The first major one was the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which was ratified in 2016. That sweeping law gave EU residents more control over their data, while requiring companies to disclose how it's tracked, gathered and used. Among other things, it forced websites to ask for permission every time they want to use cookies that gather information on you.

    Another set of EU laws, known as the Digital Markets Act, attempts to curb the tech industry's power by identifying "gatekeeper" companies, whose power is so vast that they must follow rules that ensure fair competition. 

    For Apple, that's forced a radical change to the App Store. Earlier this month, the company released a version of its iPhone software made to allow European customers to download apps from outside the App Store, the first time the company has sanctioned such moves. Apple has said that while it intends to comply with the EU's laws, allowing people to download apps from anywhere around the web creates potential security threats that potentially expose user's private information.

    Marketing vs. reality

    The Justice Department's case against Apple questions the company's marketing that its strict controls over the App Store are in the best interests of consumers, and the wider industry. 

    Apple has argued for years that it needs to treat the security of its iPhones and iPads differently from any other device before, because these handheld internet-connected supercomputers can collect so much information about who we are, where we go and what we do. The DOJ is arguing that even if that's true, Apple has used security as an excuse to push out competitors who could have offered apps, devices or services people benefit from. 

    The DOJ's specific examples

    The US agency's sweeping lawsuit focuses on some specific areas of Apple's business it believes are anticompetitive.

    Cross-platform messaging

    This is likely to be the issue most of us relate to, as we're all well steeped in the debate over green bubbles versus blue bubbles. The Justice Department went a step further and noted that green bubble messages are lower quality and don't have modern features like typing alerts that have become commonplace across the industry.

    Video game streaming

    Apple has famously fought Microsoft, Epic and other companies over game streaming, creating a rift among tech giants who say they're trying to provide more video game playing options on the iPhone. Apple eventually relented, as it was preparing to comply with the EU's DMA rules, among others.

    Web browsers

    Apple keeps particularly tight control over the web browsing experience on the iPhone, arguing it can be an attack vector for cybercriminals otherwise. Outside the EU, other web browsers are allowed to be offered on the iPhone, but they must use Apple's built-in "engine" to translate web data into the text and images you see on the screen. It may seem nerdy, but it's at the heart of how the internet runs. In the EU, because of the DMA, iPhone and iPad users can choose to use other web browsers and their separate engines, such as Mozilla's Firefox

    Smartwatches

    The Apple Watch is an industry behemoth, selling more units than all Swiss watch makers combined. Few other companies have been able to compete in the smartwatch category, which the Justice Department says is because Apple's tight control over software effectively slows competition.

    Advertising

    This is a big one. Apple has come out swinging against companies like Alphabet's Google and Meta's Facebook, attempting to curtail the way they track user behavior across the iPhone and open web. Facebook has said some of Apple's moves, such forcing apps to ask users for approval of tracking technology, have cost it tens of billions of dollars." 

    The US Sues Apple Over iPhone Competition: What to Know - CNET

    Saturday, March 16, 2024

    James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe

    James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe

    Illustration of the expansion of the Universe. Astronomers have used the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes to confirm one of the most troubling conundrums in all of physics — that the universe appears to be expanding at bafflingly different speeds depending on where we look.

    This problem, known as the Hubble Tension, has the potential to alter or even upend cosmology altogether. In 2019, measurements by the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the puzzle was real; in 2023, even more precise measurements from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cemented the discrepancy.

    Now, a triple-check by both telescopes working together appears to have put the possibility of any measurement error to bed for good. The study, published February 6 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that there may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe.

    Related: After 2 years in space, the James Webb telescope has broken cosmology. Can it be fixed?"With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility we have misunderstood the universe," lead study author Adam Riess, professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, said in a statement.

    Reiss, Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physicsfor their 1998 discovery of dark energy, the mysterious force behind the universe's accelerating expansion.

    Currently, there are two "gold-standard" methods for figuring out the Hubble constant, a value that describes the expansion rate of the universe. The first involves poring over tiny fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — an ancient relic of the universe's first light produced just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

    Dozens of stars and galaxies glisten across deep space in this James Webb Space Telescope image of the El Gordo galaxy cluster

    JWST's infrared cameras allow it to look at the universe in more precise detail than any telescope before it. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria), B. Frye (University of Arizona), P. Kamieneski (Arizona State University), T. Carleton (Arizona State University), and R. Windhorst (University of Arizona), A. Pagan (STScI), J. Summers (Arizona State University), J. D’Silva (University of Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), A. Robotham (University of Western Australia), and R. Windhorst (University of Arizona))

    Between 2009 and 2013, astronomers mapped out this microwave fuzz using the European Space Agency's Planck satellite to infer a Hubble constant of roughly 46,200 mph per million light-years, or roughly 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec (km/s/Mpc).

    The second method uses pulsating stars called Cepheid variables. Cepheid stars are dying, and their outer layers of helium gas grow and shrink as they absorb and release the star's radiation, making them periodically flicker like distant signal lamps.

    As Cepheids get brighter, they pulsate more slowly, giving astronomers a means to measure their absolute brightness. By comparing this brightness to their observed brightness, astronomers can chain Cepheids into a "cosmic distance ladder" to peer ever deeper into the universe's past. With this ladder in place, astronomers can find a precise number for its expansion from how the Cepheids' light has been stretched out, or red-shifted.

    Related: Mysterious 'unparticles' may be pushing the universe apart, new theoretical study suggests

    But this is where the mystery begins. According to Cepheid variable measurements taken by Riess and his colleagues, the universe's expansion rate is around 74 km/s/Mpc: an impossibly high value when compared to Planck's measurements. Cosmology had been hurled into uncharted territory.

    "We wouldn't call it a tension or problem, but rather a crisis," David Gross, a Nobel Prize-inning astronomer, said at a 2019 conference at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) in California.

    Initially, some scientists thought that the disparity could be a result of a measurement error caused by the blending of Cepheids with other stars in Hubble's aperture. But in 2023, the researchers used the more accurate JWSTto confirm that, for the first few "rungs" of the cosmic ladder, their Hubble measurements were right. Nevertheless, the possibility of crowding further back in the universe's past remained.

    To resolve this issue, Riess and his colleagues built on their previous measurements, observing 1,000 more Cepheid stars in five host galaxies as remote as 130 million light-years from Earth. After comparing their data to Hubble's, the astronomers confirmed their past measurements of the Hubble constant.

    "We've now spanned the whole range of what Hubble observed, and we can rule out a measurement error as the cause of the Hubble Tension with very high confidence," Riess said. "Combining Webb and Hubble gives us the best of both worlds. We find that the Hubble measurements remain reliable as we climb farther along the cosmic distance ladder."

    In other words: the tension at the heart of cosmology is here to stay.”

    Wednesday, March 13, 2024

    On "Quitting" YouTube

    Malaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain - The New York Times

    Malaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain

    "U.S. and European companies looking to diversify from China are expanding around Southeast Asia, a sign of how geopolitics is reshaping tech manufacturing.

    Workers inside a lab wearing protective clothing. The lighting makes the room appear yellow.
    The European firm Osram was early to open shop in Penang, Malaysia.Jes Aznar for The New York Times

    By Patricia Cohen

    Reporting from Penang, Kulim and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and from Bangkok, Thailand.

    Construction cranes still surround the brand-spanking new plant in Kulim’s industrial park in Malaysia. But inside, legions of workers hired by the Austrian tech giant AT&S are already gearing up to produce at full capacity by year’s end.

    Outfitted in head-to-toe coveralls, with oversized safety glasses and hard hats, they’re reminiscent of the worker bees in the movie “Minions,” but color coded by function: Blue for maintenance. Green for vendors. Pink for janitors. White for operators.

    AT&S is just one of a flood of European and American companies that have recently decided to move to or expand operations in Malaysia’s electrical and electronicsmanufacturing mecca.

    The American chip giant Intel and the German corporation Infineon are each investing $7 billion. Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips powering artificial intelligence, is teaming up with the country’s utilities conglomerate to develop a $4.3 billion artificial intelligence cloud and supercomputer center. Texas Instruments, Ericsson, Bosch and Lam Research are all expanding in Malaysia.

    The boom is evidence of how much geopolitical friction and competition are reshaping the globe’s economic landscape and driving multibillion-dollar investment decisions. As rivalries between the United States and China over cutting-edge technology simmer and trade restrictions pile up, companies — particularly those in crucial sectors like semiconductors and electric vehicles — are looking to strengthen their supply chains and production capabilities.

    People walking inside a white factory.
    AT&S, an Austrian chip maker whose largest plant is in China, started looking to diversify locations in 2020.Jes Aznar for The New York Times

    AT&S had production sites in Austria, India, South Korea and China — its largest plant — when it started hunting for a new location.

    “It was clear after 20 years of investment in China, we needed to diversify our footprint,” said Andreas Gerstenmayer, chief executive of AT&S. The company manufactures high-end printed circuit boards and substrates, which serve as the foundation for advanced electronic components that power artificial intelligence and supercomputers.

    The company’s site search started in early 2020, just as warnings began to spread about a dangerous new coronavirus in China. AT&S scouted 30 different countries on three continents before settling on Malaysia.

    Southeast Asia’s strategic position in the South China Sea and longstanding economic ties to China and the United States make the region an attractive place to set up shop. Nations like Thailand and Vietnam, AT&S’s second choice, are also aggressively courting semiconductor firms to expand, offering tax incentives and other lures.

    But Malaysia has the advantage of a head start.

    The country has been riding the tech wave since the 1970s when it energetically courted some of the world’s electrical and electronic superstars, like Intel and Litronix (now ams Osram, with headquarters in Austria and Germany). It created a free-trade zone on the island of Penang, offered tax holidays, and built industrial parks, warehouses and roads. Cheap labor was an additional draw, as was its large English-speaking population and a government supportive of foreign investment.

    Vendors and trishaw drivers in Penang, where a free-trade zone has helped draw foreign companies. Jes Aznar for The New York Times

    Malaysia’s history in the back end of making semiconductors was one of the primary draws, Mr. Gerstenmayer said.

    “They are quite aware of what the needs of the semiconductor industry are,” he said. “And they have a well-developed ecosystem in the universities, in education, labor force, supply chain” and more. Support from the government was another attraction, he said.

    Tengku Zafrul Aziz, Malaysia’s minister of investment, trade and industry, said foreign investment began to pick up 2019, driven by the widening use of semiconductors in everything from automobiles to medical devices. “There’s 5,000 chips in one car,” he said.

    After the Covid-19 pandemic revealed devastating weaknesses in global supply chains, interest in Malaysia as an additional source soared.

    That trend accelerated as great power conflicts bubbled over.

    Both China and the United States moved to forge their own reliable semiconductor supply chains, in addition to supporting other critical sectors like renewable energy and electric vehicles.

    “U.S. and European companies and even Chinese companies wanted to diversify out of China,” Mr. Zafrul Aziz said. China, too, is locating production facilities outside of the mainland, in part, some say, to sidestep U.S. sanctions. It’s a “China plus one” strategy.

    Worries about Taiwan, the world’s largest producer of semiconductors, has further fueled investment in Malaysia, he said. The island is a source of growing friction between China, which maintains Taiwan is part of its territory, and the United States, which supports it politically.

    Tech workers in Penang. Having so many tech companies in proximity has helped attract others.Jes Aznar for The New York Times

    Malaysia is already the world’s sixth largest exporter of semiconductors, and packages 23 percent of all American chips.

    “For a country of this size to be having that big an impact on the global semiconductor market is quite fantastic,” said David Lacey, director of advanced development and services at Osram, one of the world’s largest lighting companies.

    Seated at a large conference table at the Sciences University of Malaysia on Penang, he rapidly pointed to the technology around the room. “There’s a TV, there are lights, there’s a projector, there are phones,” he said. “You can pretty much guarantee there is a Malaysia component somewhere.”

    The proximity of so many tech companies also exerts a gravitational pull. In Penang and Kulim, which are connected by two long, snaking bridges, there are more than 300 companies.

    “Everything is here,” said Eric Chan, a vice president and general manager at Intel in Malaysia. After a half century, that network and infrastructure are not easily duplicated.

    Mr. Chan also mentioned the government’s crucial cooperation during the pandemic in keeping factories open.

    Foreign direct investment was nearly $40 billion last year, more than twice the total generated in 2019.

    “For a country of this size to be having that big an impact on the global semiconductor market is quite fantastic,” said David Lacey, an executive at Osram.Jes Aznar for The New York Times

    Mario Lorenz, managing director in Malaysia for the German logistics company DHL Supply Chain, said “most of our big investments have happened in the last two years.”

    During that time, the semiconductor sector has grown to dominate the company’s business in Malaysia. “We followed the trend,” he said.

    Inside DHL Supply Chain’s newest global distribution center, Penang Logistics Hub No. 4, are bespoke orange and blue shelves specifically designed to handle the heavy, oversized crates used by a semiconductor company.

    Four new supply chain facilities are in the works in Malaysia.

    Malaysia’s track record has been mostly in the back end of the semiconductor supply chain — which includes packing, assembling and testing components — activities that traditionally have been considered less complex and of lower value.

    But now the industry’s focus on packaging smaller chips — chiplets — more tightly together to increase computing power is increasing the value and technical complexity of those activities.

    Intel is building its first overseas facility for advanced 3-D chip packaging in Malaysia. When you bring in cutting-edge technology there is a “ripple effect,” said AK Chong, a vice president and managing director of Intel in Malaysia. That development will attract dozens of new businesses and help advance the labor force’s entire skill set.

    Such advancements will require a huge expansion of utilities like green energy, sanitation, water and a 5G digital infrastructure.

    That’s a challenge for any country, particularly one whose history has been marred by a multibillion dollar corruption scandal involving its sovereign wealth fund. Even so, several company executives said they were confident in Malaysia role in the supply chain.

    “They have projects to provide green energy by building up big solar farms,” Mr. Gerstenmayer of AT&S said. “Malaysia is on good path to becoming a hot spot in the electronics industry globally.”

    Malaysia Rises as Crucial Link in Chip Supply Chain - The New York Times