Kevin Xu

Topics: Twitter• Apple• IPO•

November 1, 2020: Trump Supporter and His Grandmother

Hello Interconnected Readers: I’ve been spending the last week in Reno, Nevada, doing volunteer work for the US election during this final phase. (Nevada is the swing state closest to me.) Thinking back, I’ve spent every single Election Day, both presidential and

Topics: IPO•

Wall Street Blunts the “Delisting” Hype

The “delisting” narrative of Chinese companies from the US has largely not materialized. Instead, just about every other week there’s news of a new Chinese company about to IPO in New York. The next one, Lufax, may even end up being the largest

Topics: Cloud Industry• Data Center• Facebook•

October 25, 2020: Be Good at Destroying Your Best Ideas

Hello Interconnected Readers: I’m trying something new starting this week. In addition to the six stories summary that you’ve been getting, I will open this weekly issue with a more raw, personal, and reflective letter to you about something I thought about

Topics: Apple• India• China•

iPhone: “Made in China -> India?”

I always try to live by the framework of “strong opinion, weakly held”. That’s how I treat all my thoughts shared on Interconnected. I write, not just to share what I know, but also to learn from others, absorb new information, and update

Topics: Apple• Facebook• Huawei•

October 18, 2020: Censorship, Apple in India, Huawei Selling Honor, Lithography, Chinese IPO

This issue covers the period between October 12 - 18, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Cloud Industry• Alibaba• Tencent•

China's Cloud Ceiling

Cloud computing is hot. All cloud stocks are hot. Cloud was already growing everywhere and now accelerated by COVID, with massive adoption trends like remote work, e-commerce, digital health, and who knows what else. What used to be an outlandish approach to enterprise IT

Topics: Remote Work• Semiconductor• Developer•

October 11, 2020: Remote Work, AMD-Xilinx, Developer Experience, BiliBili, Tuber Browser, China’s Snowflake

This issue covers the period between October 4 - 11, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Semiconductor• China• CFIUS•

When "Jurassic Park" Goes to China

I spent last week in the French Polynesian islands for a quick vacation.  One of my favorite moments there was approaching the magnificent landscape of Moorea on a ferry, because it reminded me of one of my favorite movies growing up -- Jurassic Park.

Topics: Open Source• Geopolitics• India•

[Enhanced] The Future of American Industry Depends on Open Source Tech

This post is an enhanced republication of an OpEd I wrote jointly with Jordan Schneider a month ago that was published in Wired Magazine [https://www.wired.com/story/opinon-the-future-of-american-industry-depends-on-open-source-tech/] . This enhanced version includes more information on how governments around the world are adopting

Topics: AI• Azure• Huawei•

September 27, 2020: Facebook, OpenAI & Microsoft, Germany, Apple, Huawei

This issue covers the period between September 21 - 27, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Huawei• Open Source• China•

300 Years: Huawei's Open Source Strategy

Lost in the fog of TikTok was an important announcement: Huawei open sourced its homemade mobile operating system, HarmonyOS, now dubbed OpenHarmony. This announcement flew under the radar, but has far-reaching implications to not just the future of mobile technology, but also how that

Topics: Tesla• RISC-V• TSMC•

September 20, 2020: Unreliable Entity List, RISC-V, TSMC, Tesla in China

This issue covers the period between September 14 - September 20, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you

Topics: Oracle• ByteDance• Regulation•

Era of Regulatory Grift: TikTok-Oracle, NXP-Qualcomm, Arm-Nvidia

The dictionary definition of the word “grift” is as follows: “to acquire money or property illicitly [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grift]”. It may be a strong word, but also more or less encapsulates the regulatory ethos that’s governing cross-border technology businesses these

Topics: Semiconductor• China• India•

September 6, 2020: China’s Semiconductor Woes and Investments, India’s New Apps Ban

This issue covers the period between August 31 - September 6, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you

Topics: ByteDance• Azure• Oracle•

What is TikTok Worth to Whom and Why?

There is no doubt that geopolitics is a major driver of TikTok’s fate in the United States. But if and when it does get sold, it’s still a multi-billion dollar transaction that has to make some business sense. I have written quite

Topics: Open Source• TSMC• ByteDance•

August 30, 2020: Open Source, Zhang Yiming, TSMC, Loongson, XPeng, MediaTek

This issue covers the period between August 24 - 30, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Open Source• China• Gitee•

Can You "Nationalize" Open Source?

The impending ban or acquisition of TikTok and ByteDance’s lawsuit against the Trump administration have sucked up all the oxygen in the US-China tech zeitgeist. A gigantic IPO, possibly the largest in the world, by Ant Financials is also looming on the horizon.

Topics: Blockchain• Azure• ByteDance•

August 23, 2020: Crypto, TikTok, JEDI, Zoom, Pinduoduo, Gitee

This issue covers the period between August 17 - 23, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. Before you go

Topics: Cloud Industry• Alibaba• Tencent•

Where Can the Chinese Internet Go?

With all the executive orders, CFIUS edicts, and additional sanctions placed on Chinese tech companies by the US, it’s hard to see where these companies - and by extension the Chinese Internet - can expand to. Certainly, China’s own economy will continue

Topics: TSMC• ByteDance• Apple•

August 16, 2020: TSMC, CFIUS, iQiyi Fraud, ByteDance Ambitions, Apple, Beke

This issue covers the period between August 9 - August 16, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. Disclaimer: all translated article titles are done by me, not official translations from the media outlets. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “China

Topics: AI• Azure• Meta•

GPT-3: An Abstraction of Time vs Money

Hype or not, GPT-3, OpenAI’s newest natural language AI model, has been percolating in the back of my mind ever since it was announced two months ago [https://openai.com/blog/openai-api/]. This post will be some open musing of what I think

Topics: Clean Network• Zoom• TikTok•

August 9, 2020: Election Interference, Clean Network, TikTok and London, Zoom, Shandong, Huawei Chips

This issue covers the period between August 2 - August 9, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. I intentionally did not include any item directly related to the EOs on TikTok and WeChat. Until more

Topics: ByteDance• Regulation• Open Source•

A Framework to (Dis)trust and Verify TikTok

Last week, the New York Times tech columnist, Kevin Roose, wrote a well-reasoned piece [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/technology/tiktok-china-ban-model.html] arguing that the U.S. government should not ban TikTok, but use it as an example and opportunity to build

Topics: Antitrust• Open Source• 5G•

August 2, 2020: Antitrust in China, Open Source 5G, Electric Vehicles IPO, ByteDance, Huawei

This issue covers the period between July 27 - August 2, 2020 with six news stories – three from English language sources, three from Chinese language sources. I purposely did not include anything related to the antitrust hearing (too many out there) and TikTok’s

Topics: COVID-19• Open Source•

COVID, Open Source, Industrial Policy

By the time you read this post, you are likely bombarded with news and tweets about the antitrust hearing of the big four tech companies (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet) and their respective quarterly earnings. Meanwhile, another announcement happened in the tech world that I