Weekly Snapshot - Aug 03, 2025
Roberto dos Reis Alvarez
I simplify complexity and connect dots to create value | Chief Curiosity Officer
Welcome to the latest edition of the Weekly Snapshot! Get ready to dive into this week’s highlights and insights. Don’t forget to share with anyone who might find it interesting!
Let's dive in!
👉 Making advanced computer chips: a feat far from easy
↳ Why it matters
Semiconductors are essential in today's world. TSMC alone produces at least 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, all concentrated in Taiwan. Any disruption—a war, earthquake or pandemic—would impact the entire world. The U.S. is working to rebuild local manufacturing capacity but that is far from easy. This past week, U.S. Secretary Scott Bessent noted how difficult it has been to get TSMC’s $42 billion Arizona project operational, pointing to local and state regulations (and they are enforced) as obstacles. Building advanced tech manufacturing at scale is a long and complex process and the basics of competitiveness matter.
↳ My thoughts on it
Taiwan is an extraordinary success story and TSMC is its symbol. From agriculture to a global tech powerhouse, Taiwan was built on investment in talent and science and the build-up of business capabilities. I saw it first-hand visiting ITRI, TSMC, and working with ITRI colleagues. Bessent’s comments are a reminder: high tech is not just about labs. You need talent, infrastructure, and a low-friction business environment, especially in a time of fast-paced change. Also: balancing regulation, citizen protection, and competitiveness is tough—my take: AI can help a lot. That said, the U.S. 20% tariffs imposed on Taiwan this past week sent TSMC’s stock plunging. Planned? Thought through? In an increasingly complex world, many things seem not quite right.
↳ Read more here
👉 AI is hungry and privacy is dead: most people didn't notice
↳ Why it matters
This past week, reports revealed that Google's search engine was indexing content provided by individual users on ChatGPT and making it available to others searching the web. In the same week, the NYT announced it had reached an agreement with Amazon, allowing the tech giant to feed NYT's content into its LLM in exchange for an annual fee of $20 million. AI is hungry. Media platforms are worried – a few, like the NYT, are making deals. In the meantime, ChatGPT users were accidentally making their private conversations discoverable by search engines such as Google, turning personal dialogues into public web results. Sensitive content including therapy-style exchanges, resumes, emails, and even internal corporate insights surfaced via Google searches. Most people have not noticed (have you?), but privacy is a mirage in today's world. And asymmetries in the relationships with tech giants are significant.
↳ My thoughts on it
AI runs on data—period. And that data comes from everywhere. Those fine-print terms we rarely read when signing up for services? That’s often where we give permission for our data to be used. In reality, we share personal details—our work, habits and even family information—across countless platforms. Two things are worth keeping in mind. First, we will increasingly see fights and deals related to data access. Surely, that will happen in the B2C world. Second, data privacy as we once knew it is largely gone. With so many platforms and ways for data to be sold, licensed or leaked, control is nearly impossible. Most people don’t fully grasp the business models behind the services they use. Increasingly, these models revolve around turning our data into a product.
↳ Read more here
👉 Look up and check what is new in telecommunications
↳ Why it matters
Mobile data traffic is expected to grow 17% annually through the end of the decade. To support this, infrastructure must expand. Starlink is already providing cell phone connectivity from low orbit. Chinese companies such as Geespace are testing low and high-orbit satellites. And just this week, SoftBank announced it will test airships operating at 20 km altitude to deliver connectivity in Japan–the business model is still unclear, but this is a new frontier. Infrastructure is not only a strategic asset for nations but also a massive business opportunity. Developing the technologies, companies and capabilities to deploy and operate such infrastructure could define the next decade—and Asia is moving fast as it did with 5G.
↳ My thoughts on it
In an increasingly bifurcated world, where China dominates critical areas from minerals to infrastructure, most innovations in connectivity are still emerging from Asia, not the West. Scale and population explain part of it, but there is more behind the curtain. Why aren't more Western companies engaged in this game? Is it about market failures? A lack of strategy and vision from Western nations? We are still at the beginning of this race, but a future with bifurcated digital infrastructures—one largely Western, one Asia-led—should not surprise anyone.
↳ Read more here
👉 To Keep An Eye On
The new U.S. tariffs will become effective - August 7 - Expect many changes and surprises before and after that.
AI4 2025 Conference – August 11–13, 2025, Las Vegas, USA - What new things will be announced?
OpenAI's GPT 5 - It's coming… This next week?
Board Member / Innovation Expert / Intrapreneur / Researcher
1moRoberto dos Reis Alvarez, 3 temas muito importantes! A questão de usar aeronaves em alta altitudes para substituir satélites já é algo de mais de duas décadas no meio aeroespacial, ou seja, além do modelo de negócios, a questão tecnológica não é trivial.