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A Chinese flag is displayed next to a “Made in China” sign seen on a printed circuit board with semiconductor chips, in this illustration picture taken February 17, 2023.

Florence Lo | Reuters

Major Asian chip stocks outside of China rose Tuesday, shrugging off a new round of U.S. semiconductor export curbs aimed at impairing Beijing’s capability to produce certain high-end chips.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — the world’s largest contract chip supplier — saw shares rise 2.4%.

Several Japanese chip-related stocks also gained. Tokyo Electron rose 4.7%, Lasertec climbed 6.7%, Advantest gained 3.9% and Renesas Electron advanced 2.2%.

Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank, which owns a stake in British chip designer Arm, saw its shares rise 3.6%.

The Biden administration’s latest chip curbs will also target sales of high-bandwidth memory chips, which could affect the world’s two largest memory chip makers — South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung.

Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, however, rose 0.9% and 1.8%, respectively. 

Derrick Irwin, portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia,” on Tuesday that the high-bandwidth memory controls would impact South Korean players to a degree.

“Although our belief is that the impact and sales of high bandwidth memory chips into China are reasonably small from these players in the scheme of things, and they’ll probably be able to shift that demand into the U.S. and other markets,” he said.

The Department of Commerce announced on Monday that it was curbing semiconductor exports to 140 new companies in its latest effort to limit China’s ability to access cutting edge chip technology that could be used for advancing its military capabilities.

Naura Technology Group, Piotech and ACM Research were among the largest Chinese companies to be included in the export controls list.

Shares of Naura Technology and ACM Research fell 3% and 1%, respectively, in China while Piotech rose 1%. China’s largest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, fell 1.5% in Hong Kong.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said Monday that the new export controls were the “culmination of the Biden-Harris Administration’s targeted approach to impair the PRC’s ability to indigenize the production of advanced technologies that pose a risk to our national security.” 

In addition to the entities added, the latest U.S. restrictions include new controls on 24 types of manufacturing equipment and three types of software tools used for developing semiconductors. 

Last month, the effectiveness of U.S. chip restrictions had been thrown into question when it was reported that a chip made by TSMC had been found in a Huawei product

The latest export restrictions include a new “red flag guidance” to address compliance concerns, and several “critical regulatory changes” to enhance the effectiveness of existing controls.

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Chinese tech giant Tencent’s quarterly revenue jumps 15% on AI investments, gaming unit boost

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Chinese tech giant Tencent's quarterly revenue jumps 15% on AI investments, gaming unit boost

The Tencent logo is displayed on the exterior of a building at the company’s headquarters, with a surveillance camera visible in the foreground, on November 30, 2024, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. 

Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tencent on Wednesday reported a 15% jump in second-quarter revenue as a strong performance in its gaming unit and AI investments boosted growth.

Here’s how Tencent did in the first quarter of 2025:

  • Revenue: 184.504 billion Chinese yuan ($25.7 billion), compared to 161.117 billion Chinese yuan in the same period last year
  • Operating profit: 63.052 billion yuan, versus 57.313 billion yuan last year

Domestic games revenue, which accounts for sales from China, rose 17% year-on-year to 40.4 billion yuan thanks to the performance of the company’s newly-released “Delta Force” game and evergreen titles such as “Honor of Kings,” “VALORANT” and “Peacekeeper Elite.”

Revenue from its international gaming business totaled 18.8 billion yuan, a 35% year-on-year increase driven by games such as “PUBG Mobile,” and the recently-released “Dune: Awakening.”

Meanwhile, Tencent said that AI-driven improvements to the company’s advertising platform and Weixin transaction ecosystem helped boost marketing services revenue by 20% in the quarter to 35.8 billion yuan.

“During the second quarter of 2025, we delivered double-digit revenue and non-IFRS operating profit growth on a year-on-year basis, as we invested in, and also benefitted from, utilising AI,” said Tencent CEO Ma Huateng.

Tencent said its capital expenditures surged 119% to 19.1 billion yuan in the second quarter, as the tech giant invested in AI upgrades for advertising, its gaming business and social media service Weixin.

The Shenzhen-headquartered company’s music unit posted better-than-expected results thanks to growth in strong growth from subscription and non-subscription online music revenue, according to Citi’s Alicia Yap. The firm said Tencent Music had 124 million music subscribers, up slightly from 123 million subscribers noted in Tencent’s first-quarter report.

Looking ahead to the second half of the year, Tencent Music “continues to drive high-quality growth in subscription revenues, growth momentum from fans economy, concert and ad revs will support faster-than-previously expected full year growth,” Yap said in a note.

Tencent, like other cloud computing firms, has put a higher focus on selling artificial intelligence tools as a way to boost revenue and differentiate its offerings from those of its rivals.

Earlier this summer, Tencent revealed it is looking to bring its cloud computing capabilities to Europe, pitching it against U.S. hyperscalers AmazonMicrosoft and Alphabet-owned Google, which collectively make up 70% share of Europe’s cloud market.

“We are striving to bring further benefits of AI to consumers and enterprises through powering more use cases within Weixin, driving usage of our AI native app Yuanbao, and upgrading the capabilities of our HunYuan foundation models,” Huateng said in the Wednesday earnings release.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

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Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

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Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Circle Internet Group Initial Public Offering at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

NYSE

Circle Internet Group stock tumbled more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after it said it would offer 10 million Class A shares to the public.

Of the total stock being offered, 2 million shares will be offered by Circle. The remaining 8 million shares will be sold by stockholders.

The stablecoin issuer’s shares have soared more than 450% since it went public on June 5.

As part of the offering, Circle is offering its underwriters a 30-day option to buy an additional 1.5 million shares.

Circle shares closed Tuesday up 1.3% after the company reporting its first quarterly results as a publicly traded company. While charges tied to its IPO weighed on its second-quarter results and led to a loss of $4.48 per share, it saw revenue rise 53% on the back of strong stablecoin growth.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

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CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York on March 28, 2025.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

CoreWeave shares fell about 6% in extended trading on Tuesday even as the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure beat estimates for second-quarter revenue

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: Loss of 21 cents
  • Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected

Revenue more than tripled from $395.4 million a year earlier, CoreWeave said in a statement. The company registered a $290.5 million net loss, compared with a $323 million loss in second quarter of 2024. CoreWeave’s earnings per share figure wasn’t immediately comparable with estimates from LSEG.

CoreWeave’s operating margin shrank to 2% from 20% a year ago due primarily to $145 million in stock-based compensation costs. This is CoreWeave’s second quarter of full financial results as a public company following its IPO in March.

CoreWeave pointed to an expansion in business with OpenAI, a major client and investor. Also during the quarter, CoreWeave acquired Weights and Biases, a startup with software for monitoring AI models, for $1.4 billion.

In May, management touted 420% revenue growth, alongside widening losses and nearly $9 billion in debt. The stock still doubled anyway over the course of the next month.

CoreWeave shares became available on Nasdaq at the end of the first quarter, after the company sold 37.5 shares at $40 each, yielding $1.5 billion in proceeds. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading at $148.75 for a market cap of over $72 billion.

A CoreWeave data center project with up to 250 megawatts of capacity is set to be delivered in 2026, the company said in the statement.

Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

WATCH: Citi’s Tyler Radke’s bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy

Citi's Tyler Radke's bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy

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