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The world’s three best-selling makers of bitcoin mining machinesall of Chinese originare setting up manufacturing footholds in the United States as President Donald Trump’s tariff war reshapes the cryptocurrency supply chain. Bitmain, Canaan, and MicroBT build over 90% of global mining rigsessentially computers dedicated to number-crunching that produces bitcoin. Establishing U.S. bases could shield them from tariffs but risks stoking security concerns the U.S. has with China in areas as varied as chip making and energy security. “The U.S.-China trade war is triggering structural, not superficial, changes in bitcoin’s supply chains,” said Guang Yang, chief technology officer at crypto tech provider Conflux Network. Moreover, for U.S. firms, “this goes beyond tariffs. It’s a strategic pivot toward ‘politically acceptable’ hardware sources,” Yang said. Bitmain, the biggest of the three by sales, started U.S. production of mining rigs in December in a “strategic move” following Trump’s presidential electoral win a month earlier. Canaan started trial production in the U.S. with the aim of avoiding tariffs after Trump on April 2 announced his so-called Liberation Day levies, senior executive Leo Wang told Reuters. The initiative is exploratory as the volatile tariff situation precludes heavy investment, he said. Third-ranked MicroBT in a statement said it is “actively implementing a localisation strategy in the U.S.” to “avoid the impact of tariffs”. The trio dominate a sector analysts estimated to be worth $12 billion by 2028. It is the upstream of a business chain that extends through the energy-intensive process of mining bitcoin, the supporting IT infrastructure and the trading platforms. U.S. rival Auradinebacked by top bitcoin miner by market value, MARA Holdingshas been lobbying to restrict Chinese supplies to stimulate competition in hardware. “While over 30% of global bitcoin mining occurs in North America, more than 90% of mining hardware originates from China representing a major imbalance of geographic demand and supply,” said Auradine’s chief strategy officer, Sanjay Gupta. Consultancy Frost & Sullivan estimated the top three held 95.4% of the hardware market in terms of computing power sold as of December 2023. When it comes to Chinese mining rigs, “hundreds of thousands of them connected to the U.S. electrical grid” is a security risk, Gupta said. Canaan’s Wang said mining rigs do not threaten security because “they are useless if not applied to bitcoin mining”. Still, manufacturers could suffer “collateral damage” from U.S. restrictions on high-tech sales to Chinese firms, he said. Underscoring the risk, Bitmain’s AI affiliate, Sophgo, has been blacklisted by the U.S. government on security grounds. Bitmain did not reply to a request for comment. FIRST-MOVER China once dominated the entire bitcoin value chainfrom rig-making through mining to tradinguntil its government banned cryptocurrency activity on the Chinese mainland in 2021 citing risk to financial stability. Miners, traders and exchanges moved abroad. Shielded by their role as technology manufacturers, however, Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT continued to dominate in hardware. They fended off Western rivals partly due to first-mover advantage in developing high-performance chips tailor-made for mining. Canaan has since moved its headquarters to Singapore from Chinathough it still has Chinese operationsand set up a pilot production line in the U.S., a market that contributed 40% of revenue last year. “The rationale is to try to reduce the cost for both us and our customers,” said Wang, Canaan’s vice president of corporate development and capital markets. The prospect of tariffs means “we have to explore all alternatives”. The U.S. this year imposed a 10% baseline tariff on imports from many countries plus an extra 20% on imports from China. It has also said it could increase tariffs for Southeast Asian countries where Chinese rig makers have set up assembly plants. CHOKE POINT Trump has promised to be the “crypto president” who popularises cryptocurriencies’ mainstream use in the United States. Son Eric Trump together with energy and technology firm Hut 8 launched miner American Bitcoin with the goal of building a strategic bitcoin reserve. The president’s crypto-friendly policies, however, can only highlight China’s outsized role in bitcoin infrastructure, potentially putting rig makers in the crosshairs. China’s hardware dominance “creates a choke point for U.S. miners,” said John Deaton, a U.S. crypto-law attorney. “If China restricts exports or manipulates supply . . . it could disrupt bitcoin’s network stability and affect U.S. users and investors,” Deaton said. The biggest miners by market valueMARA, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and Riot Platformsare all U.S.-based, so over-reliance on hardware of Chinese origin “is potentially problematic”, said Ryan M. Yonk, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research. Chinese rig makers might be setting up shop in the U.S. but in the short term, U.S. miners will still buy rigs from China and be stung by higher import costs, said Kadan Stadlemann, chief technology officer at crypto platform Komodo. “But this isn’t about hurting the industry. It’s about forcing a long-overdue shift,” he said. Samuel Shen and Vidya Ranganathan, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Malaysia is expected to add 68 gigawatts of gas-fired power by 2030 to address growing electricity consumption driven by demand from data centres, an industry official said. The country is expected to see the fastest surge in data centre power demand in southeast Asia, with its share of electricity consumed by data centres in the region to triple to 21% by 2027 from 7% in 2022, a joint report in May by Bain & Co with others including Google and Temasek showed. Rising gas demand could see Malaysia, the fifth-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), start importing the super-chilled fuel in four to five years, the head of state energy firm Petronas told the Energy Asia conference this week. Megat Jalaluddin, CEO of state utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad, said he expects Malaysia to add 68 gigawatts of gas-fired power by building new plants and extending the life of existing ones as it looks to cut dependence on coal. That represents a 4054% increase from the current 15 GW of gas-fired capacity. Total power consumption in Malaysia is on track to increase 30% by 2030, and Malaysia has already invited industry proposals for supply, he said. “We want to phase out coal responsibly. Then the next best option that can basically take the place of coal is gas,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Energy Asia event. Malaysia could also add as much as 10 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, more than doubling the 9 GW currently, as data centres push for access to cleaner sources of power, he said. In the last two years, Malaysia has turned to its coal-fired power plants to address surging demand which grew at the fastest pace in 14 years in 2024, according to energy think-tank Ember. Data centres are expected to require 19.5 GW of power generation capacity by 2035, accounting for 52% of Peninsular Malaysia’s electricity use, from about 2% now, Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof told Reuters. Technology giants including Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet’s Google and ByteDance have announced billions of dollars in investments in Malaysia since the beginning of last year, powering an infrastructure boom. Malaysia’s southern state of Johor has emerged as Southeast Asia’s hottest data centre hub due to its proximity to Singapore, relatively cheap land and power and faster approvals, real estate consultancy Knight Frank said in a report. Sudarshan Varadhan and Ashley Tang, Reuters
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Before you hit send on your next email, pause for a minute. If youre like the average employee, you draft 112 emails a week, spending about five and a half minutes writing each one, according to this survey by Slack. If your messages go ignored or if the recipient requests clarification, you might want to consider how youre showing up in their inbox. Professionalism in email communication is important, says Dr. Laurie Cure, CEO of Innovative Connections, an executive coaching and HR consultant. Ultimately, we want our communication to reflect who we are, but more importantly, we want people to hear what we are saying, she says. When they are lost in poor text, grammar errors, emojis that they do not understand, or a confusing message, we are left with misunderstandings that damage our reputation and credibility. It also requires more time to unravel and clarify messages that were not received as intended. Whether you realize it or not, youre going to be judged by how you communicateincluding your emails. Here are seven common mistakes that can make you look unprofessional. 1. You Get the Recipient’s Name Wrong While it sounds basic, you start off on the wrong foot if you get the recipients name wrong. Unfortunately, it happens all the time, says Alexa Rome, director of PR and Communications at Omnus Technologies, provider of IT support. I’ve lost count of how often someone calls me Alex, even though my email address and signature say Alexa, she says. It signals you didn’t take two seconds to double-check the name of the person you’re contacting. It feels impersonal, like you couldn’t be bothered to take the time to learn my name. Trust drops instantly. Even if you enter someones name right, autocorrect might step in and change it, especially if the name is unique. Before hitting send, take a second to be sure the name is right. 2. You Use Unprofessional Language If you regularly start business emails with Hey or end them with Thx, you could be inadvertently sending a signal that youre casual about work, says communication coach Judnefera Rasayon. If youre seen as someone who doesnt take the job seriously, that could damage your reputation and hurt your prospects for advancement, she says. It could potentially cost you and your company clients and revenue. Elise Powers, CEO of Eleview Consulting, a communications training firm, agrees. Don’t start with Hey, she says. It’s too informal for email and reads like a text message. Hi, Hello, or Good Morning are more professional. Also, skip the emojis in email, even if you’re emailing a peer or work best friend, adds Powers. You never know if your email will be forwarded on down the line and a senior leader might see the emojis and think, This person is immature or too casual in their correspondence, she says. 3. You Ramble Every email should be skimmable, synthesized, and concise, says Powers. She recommends using bullet points, bolding, and brief paragraphs to make it easy for the recipient to quickly read your message. There shouldn’t be long blocks of text, she says. It takes more time to write a skimmable, concise email, and it’s a simple way to add value to someone else. Rasayon suggests having a clear point in mind before you start writing your email instead of rambling off the top of your head. Unclear requests, deadlines, or instructions could result in people not reading or replying. 4. You Reply All Before you hit reply all on an email that includes a lot of people, make sure everyone on the thread really needs to read what you have to say. Otherwise, youre adding to the dozens of emails filling up their inboxes. I’m shocked by how many people don’t get this, says Rome. You should almost never ‘reply all,’ unless every person on the thread truly needs your response. (Spoiler: they usually don’t.) It makes you seem unaware and oblivious of how communication actually works. 5. You Over-Apologize If you started your email by saying, Sorry for the delay” or “Sorry for the long email,” go back and delete those phrases. While saying sorry in and of itself is not unprofessional, its unnecessary, says Rome. Not [saying sorry] does make you more professional, she says. Instead, say, Thanks for your patience, or say what you need to say. Period. Apologizing is more common with women, adds Rome. If a man wouldn’t apologize for it, you probably don’t need to either, she says. You’re allowed to communicate without disclaimers. 6. You Take Too Long to Respond No one likes to wait for days to get a response to an email, says Rasayon. A response doesnt have to be a complete response, she says. It could be an interim reply that doesnt provide a complete answer, but acknowledges that youve seen their message, started the process of getting them an answer, and will follow up once you have one. Not responding in a timely way can send a message that youre not on top of your work, that you ignored the email, or that you dont view the contents of the email as important, says Rasayon. 7. You Respond Too Quickly On the flip side of responding too slowly is responding too quickly. Were all busy, and you likely work in a fast-paced environment. That isnt an excuse to fire off quick messages. One of the challenges with the written word is its lack of nonverbal cues, says Cure. Ambiguous language and reader assumptions make email communicaton particularly challenging, she says. Drafting an important email should take time, and Cure recommends creating a first draft, and then going back to reread them with fresh eyes to ensure they communicate what you desire. Just today, I met with a leader who was voice texting and did not turn off the speaker, she says. They ended up sending an entire second conversation to the recipient. While AI can help you tighten your message, it can make you sound like a robot, says Rome. We’re still humans emailing humans, she says. If your email doesn’t sound like something you’d say out loud, revise it.
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