03 October 2025
In 2025, the AI race erupted into a battleground between the U.S. and China. Semiconductors – the essential building blocks of chips – leapt to front-page news as Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs conspicuously spared them, only to target them with a national-security probe two weeks later. Washington is now mulling 100 percent duties on imports from non-U.S. firms, while Beijing flexes its diplomatic and economic muscle to expand its hold on the semiconductor chain in Southeast Asia and beyond.
Semiconductors have become the oil of the AI age – symbols of power, politics and progress. While Taiwan is the undisputed capital of chip-making, governments worldwide are shovelling billions into establishing domestic fabrication plants, or fabs, and luring massive data-center projects, hoping to cement themselves as AI and business hubs. These facilities’ vast appetite for electricity is reshaping power geographies – from the Nordics to rising hubs in Malaysia, Morocco and South Africa.
Meanwhile inside boardrooms, 82 percent of executives say that scaling AI is a top priority (MIT). And the latest buzzword isn’t chatbot, it’s agents – autonomous systems that deduce, plan and act. But these AI tools are also arming cyber criminals, with sophisticated, machine-speed attacks targeting new vulnerabilities. Here, we trace the chain from end to end – from infra trends to chip design, and the software reshaping business models – to find out who is setting the pace, and how, in the global tech race.
Written by: Lena Hunter
Project Director: Libby Jennings
Source: Gartner
