TNB Tech Minute: Japan to Buy 27,500 Nvidia Chips in AI Push

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**Pierre Bienaimé** (0:33)
Here's your morning TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, July 16th. I'm Pierre Bienaimé for The Wall Street Journal.
The Japanese government plans to buy thousands of Nvidia's next generation chips to build its own domestic AI ecosystem. According to an announcement made during Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Tokyo, Japan purchased 27,500 AI chips to fuel a computing hub slated to launch in 2028 The infrastructure will support efforts by state-backed consortium Notra to develop so-called physical AI, the technology that lets machines interact in the real world. Japan is one of many countries rushing to invest in sovereign AI to secure technological independence and shield themselves from geopolitical vulnerabilities.
The UK's media watchdog is investigating TikTok over how the company conducts age checks on its users to prevent children from seeing harmful content. Under the Online Safety Act, social media companies are required to use highly effective age assurance methods to identify minors using their services. The regulator, Ofcom, says TikTok's age estimation methods may have failed to correctly identify a significant proportion of children, exposing them to content like pornography. Many social media companies have opted to use age inference models in which websites assess users' age based on how they interact on the platform.
A TikTok spokesperson said the company is confident it meets the law's requirements and will work with Ofcom to demonstrate its compliance.
And Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has reported another round of quarterly earnings that blew past Wall Street's expectations. It also pledged to invest an additional $100 billion in the US and plans to spend a record amount cementing its position atop the global semiconductor supply chain, and sending one of the strongest signals yet that the AI boom is alive and kicking. The new commitment brings its total planned investment in the US to $265 billion, a sum its CEO called the largest direct foreign investment in US history. And that's your TNB Tech Minute. We'll be back this afternoon with more.

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