Taiwan investigators on Friday alleged that Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Co. (SMIC) illegally recruited high-technology talent.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MIJB) said in a statement that SMIC had used a Samoa-based entity as cover to set up a subsidiary on the island “under the guise of foreign investment” and has been “actively recruiting” talent from Taiwan.

CNBC was unable to independently verify the claims and SMIC was not immediately available for comment.

The ministry said Taiwan began investigating the issue in December 2024. Eleven Chinese enterprises suspected of paoching talent were investigated, it said, with agents conducting searches at 34 locations and questioning 90 individuals.

SMIC is China’s biggest semiconductor manufacturing firm. It was thrust into the spotlight in 2023 when it was revealed to be the maker of the 7 nanometer chip in Huawei’s smartphone at the time. A few years prior, SMIC was put on a U.S. government export blacklist.

China has been trying to ramp up its chipmaking capabilities via SMIC, but the company remains behind competitors like TSMC in Taiwan. Chip export restrictions imposed by the U.S. also mean SMIC is unable to access the latest chipmaking tools from critical suppliers like ASML that could allow it to catch up.

Taiwan is a hotbed of talent in the semiconductor industry as it is home to TSMC, the world’s biggest and most advanced chipmaker. The U.S. has sought to tap into this talent, and bring more chipmaking capabilities to its shores, by convincing TSMC to build more manufacturing capacity in the country.

Taiwan’s MJIB said it set up a special task force at the end of 2020 to investigate allegations of “illegal poaching” of talent.

“Chinese enterprises often disguise their identities through various means, including setting up operations under the guise of Taiwanese, overseas Chinese, or foreign-invested companies, while in reality being backed by Chinese capital, establishing unauthorized business locations in Taiwan without government approval, and using employment agencies to falsely assign employees to Taiwanese firm,” the ministry said.

Ubisoft shares surged on Friday after the French video game publisher announced a deal to spin out some of its best-selling franchises.

On Thursday, Ubisoft revealed plans to form a new gaming subsidiary, with Chinese technology giant Tencent investing 1.16 billion euros ($1.25 billion) into the unit.

The subsidiary will include Ubisoft’s best-known games brands, including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, according to a press release.

Ubisoft shares jumped 11% Friday morning before paring gains later in the day to trade 9% higher.

The game maker said Thursday that its newly formed unit would “focus on building game ecosystems designed to become truly evergreen and multi-platform.”

The investment from Tencent values the new subsidiary at 4 billion euros, Ubisoft said. That’s more than double Ubisoft’s current market capitalization.

Investors were hoping for a move from Ubisoft to clear up uncertainty surrounding its future after a series of challenges faced by the firm in recent years.

Ubisoft has been plagued by various issues, from financial struggles to delays to some of its key games — including its most recently released Assassin’s Creed Shadows title.

In February, the firm reported a 52% drop in fiscal third-quarter net bookings, beset by underperformance of some of its key games.

Ubisoft released its newest title Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the latest installment in Ubisoft’s top game franchise, last week.

The game secured generally positive reviews, getting an average reviewer score of 82 on review aggregation site Metacritic.

American tech giants like Tesla and Nvidia are racing to develop humanoid robots, stressing their importance to the future economy. But analysts warn they are already at risk of losing out to China.

So-called humanoid robots — artificial intelligence-powered machines designed to resemble humans in appearance and movement — are expected to provide a range of use cases, such as filling industrial and service sector jobs.  

Investor excitement surrounding the robots has been mounting amid increased mentions from tech leaders like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, who ushered in “the age of generalist robotics” earlier this month when announcing a new portfolio of technologies for humanoid robot development.

In the manufacturing of the robots themselves, Tesla’s humanoid robot project, Optimus, appears to be leading in the U.S., with CEO Elon Musk announcing plans to produce about 5,000 units this year.

While Musk’s ambitious plans could give it a leg up on U.S. competitors like Apptronik and Boston Dynamics that are yet to hit the mass market, he will face stiff competition from a familiar source: China. 

Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics last month briefly sold two humanoid robots to consumers on the e-commerce platform JD.com, as per local media. Meanwhile, Shanghai-based robotics startup Agibot, also known as Zhiyuan Robotics, has matched Optimus’s goal to produce 5,000 robots this year, according to the South China Morning Post. 

As Chinese electric vehicle companies like BYD begin outpacing Tesla’s growth and undercutting its prices, experts say a similar dynamic could play out in humanoid robotics. 

“China has the potential to replicate its disruptive impact from the EV industry in the humanoid space. However, this time the disruption could extend far beyond a single industry, potentially transforming the labor force itself,” said Reyk Knuhtsen, analyst at SemiAnalysis, an independent research and analysis company specializing in semiconductors and AI.

For example, Unitree released its G1 humanoid robot for consumers in May with a starting price of $16,000. In comparison, Morgan Stanley estimates that the selling cost of Tesla’s Optimus Gen2 humanoid robot could be around $20,000, but only if the company is able to scale, shorten its research and development cycle, and use cost-effective components from China.

Unitree made a major splash in the robot’s space in January when 16 of its highest-performing H1 humanoid robots joined a group of human dancers to celebrate the Lunar New Year in a demonstration broadcast on national television.

But there are signs that China’s progress in robots go much further. Morgan Stanley’s February research note found that the country has led the world in patent filings mentioning “humanoid” over the past five years, with 5,688 patents compared with 1,483 from the United States.

Large players such as Xiaomi and EV makers, such as BYD, Chery, and Xpeng, are also involved in the humanoid robot space. 

“Our research suggests China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics where startups are benefitting from established supply chains, local adoption opportunities, and strong degrees of national government support,” the note said.

Beijing has increasingly backed the space, with government departments promoting their development. In 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued guidelines for the space, calling for “production at scale” by 2025.

According to Ming Hsun Lee, head of Greater China automotive and industrials research at BofA Global Research, China sees humanoid robots as an important industry because of their potential to mitigate looming labor shortages. 

“I think in the short-term, three to four years, we will see humanoid robots initially applied in production lines to compare some workers, and in the midterm, we will see them gradually spread into the service industry,” he said. 

Musk predicted that he’d have over 1,000, or a few thousand, Optimus robots working at Tesla in 2025. According to Chinese state media, EV makers like BYD and Geely have already deployed some of Unitree’s humanoid robots at their factories.  

Lee said that increased adoption will coincide with a “very fast” decline in component costs, also noting that China owns around 70% of the supply chain for these components. 

According to a report by SemiAnalysis earlier this month, the Unitree G1 — “the only viable humanoid robot on the market” — is entirely decoupled from American components.

The report warns that China is the only country positioned to reap the economic awards of intelligent robotics systems, including humanoid robots, which “poses an existential threat to the US as it is outcompeted in all capacities.” 

“To catch up, U.S. players must rapidly mobilize a strong manufacturing and industrial base, whether domestically or through allied nations … For Tesla and similar firms, it may be wise to begin reshoring or ‘friendshoring’ their component sourcing and manufacturing to reduce reliance on China,” said SemiAnalysis’ Knuhtsen. 

Bank of America analysts predicted in a research note this month that the deployment of humanoid robots will accelerate rapidly, aided by the development of AI, with global annual sales reaching 1 million units by 2030 and 3 billion humanoid robots in operation by 2060.