Flagship

Nvidia CEO says India should export AI

Chip giant Nvidia is deepening its ties to the growing Indian artificial intelligence market. The US firm on Thursday announced a slate of partnerships with Indian businesses including Reliance, a conglomerate owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Nvidia also plans to work with a local IT company to create an AI model in Hindi. Global chip firms are racing to build semiconductor facilities in India, which aims to eventually compete with other tech hubs like Taiwan. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that instead of focusing on manufacturing chips, India should harness its data and energy resources to become an AI export powerhouse: “Other countries have been manufacturing chips… for a long time. No one manufactures intelligence at the moment.”

China can’t catch up to US chip design

China is trying, but so far failing, to close the gap with the US on semiconductor design software. “Electronic design automation” (EDA) programs allow manufacturers to develop blueprints for highly complex chips containing billions of transistors. The sector represents only a small part of the chip industry but is a critical bottleneck in supply chains — the “paints and brushes” of the art of semiconductor manufacturing, one analyst told the Financial Times. Beijing’s five-year economic plan, released in 2021, identified EDA as a top priority to decrease Chinese manufacturers’ reliance on foreign businesses. While there’s been some progress, Chinese companies still account for less than 2% of the global EDA market share.

WH adviser criticizes GOP tariff plans

International finance ministers and CEOs in Washington this week are gushing about the US economy, a top Biden administration official told Semafor on Thursday. “All they’re talking about is the strength of the US economy,” White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said at Semafor’s World Economy Summit, hosted on the sidelines of the World Bank and IMF meetings. But she warned that Republican tariff proposals could “take us back” to pandemic-era price increases, calling them “far more disruptive than anything we’ve seen since the 1930s.” A Financial Times poll released Thursday showed that more Americans trust Republican nominee Donald Trump with the economy than his rival Kamala Harris, whose agenda was deemed “vastly superior” by 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists.

French trader behind big Trump bets

A French trader used a popular political prediction platform to wager $45 million that Donald Trump will win the US presidential election, skewing the odds in the Republican’s favor. The trader used different accounts on Polymarket, which doesn’t permit US users. The crypto-based platform now has Trump’s odds at 61%, up from 50% in early October. The ubiquity of prediction platforms has been a defining feature of this election: Proponents say they are more responsive to developments compared to polls, which have shifted slightly in Trump’s favor in recent days. But analysts question whether prediction markets are “in any way indicative of reality, or whether the bets might constitute a form of manipulation, astroturfing momentum for Trump,” The New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka wrote.

Lebanon damage could exceed $20B

As Israeli airstrikes bombard southern Beirut, a new report estimated that Lebanon’s economic losses from the war could exceed $20 billion. According to Lebanon-based outlet L’Orient Today, the report estimated that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty could double to at least 80% in heavily bombarded regions. The findings follow a United Nations report that said the Israel-Hezbollah conflict will wipe 9% off Lebanon’s GDP, exacerbating its yearslong economic downturn. But thousands of displaced residents from southern Lebanon have boosted the economic fortunes of Beirut’s once-thriving commercial district by filling its hotels and restaurants — one shop owner told the Associated Press that it had been revived “in a wrong way.”

Ramen prices a sign of economic crunch

Rising ramen prices in Japan have become a symbol of the mounting cost of living ahead of the country’s election Sunday. Ramen has long been associated with eating on a budget, but “it’s no longer cheap food for the masses,” a Tokyo ramen shop owner told Reuters. A record number of noodle shops are on track to go bankrupt this year. Japan’s largely unpopular ruling party is at risk of losing its parliamentary majority, and the economic pinch could prove to be a tipping point for voters, analysts said, with the opposition vowing to implement price-lowering measures. It’s not the only iconic dish to become a cost-of-living barometer: The Berlin döner kebab and Britain’s fish and chips are also in the spotlight.

Economic strain behind scurvy return

Scurvy, the disease associated with 18th-century sailors, is making a surprising comeback. The condition, caused by a vitamin C deficiency, can lead to loose teeth, lethargy, reopening of old wounds, internal bleeding, and if left untreated, death. After the cause was identified, the British Royal Navy gave its sailors citrus fruit to stave off the disease, earning them the nickname “limeys,” and the practice spread. But a July study found that reported cases in children in the US more than tripled between 2016 and 2020, and scurvy was also detected in Canada and Australia. Scurvy remains rare, but a new medical report attributed its comeback to a rise in weight loss surgeries and diets lacking in fruit and vegetables owing to the cost-of-living crisis.

Conservative group CatholicVote is targeting Catholic swing state voters with a $250,000 ad buy starring Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who steers clear of topics like abortion in the television spot, Semafor’s David Weigel reported. “Republicans have been portraying the Harris campaign and Democratic Party as anti-Christian and anti-Catholic” with subtle messaging that avoids the most divisive issues, Weigel wrote.

Guam Kmart thrives despite US closures

Kmart shuttered its last full-size location in the contiguous US this month, but the department store’s Guam outlet is thriving. Without competition from other big retailers, the Micronesian island’s Kmart has become a mainstay for tourists and locals — “a little piece of America in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean,” The Dial wrote. The store’s “showcase of American excess” likely attracts tourists from South Korea and Japan, but some of its wares also highlight the history and cultural tapestry of the US territory: The Guam Kmart sells cookies unique to the island’s indigenous Chamorro population, along with Spam, a post-World War II staple there.

HK unearths dinosaur fossils

Dinosaur fossils were discovered in Hong Kong for the first time. The remains of a large dinosaur belonging to a species that lived between 145 million and 66 million years ago were found on the uninhabited Port Island to the northeast of the city and will go on display at a center in a popular Hong Kong shopping district. The island, which has now been closed to visitors pending future excavations, is part of a “geopark,” an area of unusual geology. Recently, Chinese scientists came to believe that the sedimentary rocks in its eastern half would be a good place to hunt for fossils. China has become perhaps the world’s hottest dinosaur-hunting spot: New species of tyrannosaur and stegosaur have been discovered in the last four months alone.

France tries to combat acronym scourge

TL;DR, France is going to war against acronyms. The country is known for its bureaucratic tendency to abbreviate just about anything — the Olympics become known as JO, a nursing home is an EHPAD, and CNFCSTAGN refers to a training center for certain types of officers, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We have nothing but acronyms, it’s awful,” President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged earlier this year. He is the latest French leader to try and simplify the country’s unintelligible government-speak, in a program dubbed “Speak French to us.” It’s still TBD whether that effort will be successful.

Oct. 25:

• London’s High Court rules on a case brought by an environmental group over the UK’s national climate adaptation program.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits the Indian state of Goa.
• Tom Hanks and Robin Wright attend the premiere of Here at the American Film Institute film festival.

Rojak is a colloquial Malay word for “eclectic mix,” and is the name for a Javanese dish that typically combines sliced fruit and vegetables with a spicy dressing.

Imaginary friends

The proposed solution to a lack of human connection is increasingly non-human connection, London-based writer Freya India argued, and she’s not happy about it. New apps that promise to replicate personal interactions “aren’t encouraging face-to-face friendships or trying to create new communities. They don’t even pretend anymore,” India wrote in the newsletter After Babel, pointing to AI boyfriend and girlfriend sites, imaginary therapists, and the avatar-populated Metaverse. Beyond that, social media feeds are filled with influencers — and our own friends — presenting selectively enhanced versions of their real lives.

These online interactions are “only going to get more addictive, more customized, more controllable,” India wrote, suggesting that people seek out physical, real-world connections instead. Next time a new app promises to cure your loneliness or a friend invites you into their Metaverse, “I suggest you decline.”

Who runs the world?

Taiwan is home to one of the world’s most vibrant women-led indigenous cultures. Among the approximately 225,000 Amis people, women are considered the economic breadwinners, “because they work at the farm and provide stable meals, making them the leaders of the family,” a Taiwan-based professor told The Counteroffensive newsletter, which is focused on the Ukraine war but is devoting a series of editions to Taiwan.

Traditionally, when an Amis couple gets married, the man moves in with his wife’s family and takes her name. But China-friendly politicians who took power in Taiwan in the mid-20th century passed an identification and household registration law that resulted in fewer Amis men taking their wives’ names over fears of discrimination, as Chinese tradition dictated that children should inherit the father’s last name. Today, the newsletter argued, Beijing’s increased pressure on Taiwan — which China sees as a breakaway province it will eventually absorb — risks further disrupting the tribe’s traditional gender roles and social structures.

Kimo-no big deal

The hit Emmy-winning series Shōgun’s acclaimed period depiction of Japanese culture and fashion was so realistic that it highlighted an old form of kimono that isn’t worn today. In the newsletter Japan Happiness, Tokyo-based journalist and licensed kimono fitter Hiroko Yoda focused on Shōgun’s inclusion of kosode, a piece of clothing that was once an undergarment. Eventually, it evolved into outerwear, became more ornate, and “grew more and more luxurious.” The kosode can be seen “as a lens into the social politics of their era,” Yoda wrote. It’s also a testament to the show — and its budget — that it made the costumes from scratch, since this style of kimono doesn’t exist anymore.

A rare typescript of the classic French novella The Little Prince is expected to sell for $1.25 million in Abu Dhabi next month. One of only three in existence, the hand-corrected copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale about a pilot who meets a prince from a faraway planet is especially valuable for containing the first instance of the beloved line: “One only sees clearly with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.” Previous drafts show Saint-Exupéry going back and forth trying out different versions of the phrase, a specialist at London rare book dealer Peter Harrington told The Guardian. Here, “you can actually witness the author making that breakthrough and writing that full sentence for the first time.”