The Global Morning Briefing summarizes global news reported by Seoul Economic Daily.
TSMC Opens the Door to a Taiwan-Japan Semiconductor Alliance
TSMC's expansion into a chip plant in Kumamoto, Japan, has spurred a Taiwan-Japan semiconductor alliance, turning Kyushu into a rising chip hub dubbed "Silicon Island." Taiwanese suppliers are following TSMC into Japan one after another, while the Japanese government responds with sweeping support, rapidly deepening ties between the two.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on the 24th, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions (CTC), a subsidiary of ITOCHU Corporation, recently established an IT joint venture with Taiwan's Systex in Fukuoka to help Taiwanese firms entering Japan build their systems. Approvals of Taiwanese direct investment in Japan rose from 99 cases in 2024 to 128 in 2025, a record high.
A support program under which the Japanese government will invest 68 trillion yen (about 591 trillion won) in semiconductors by 2040 through a public-private partnership is also driving efforts to attract Taiwanese firms. Kyushu, whose abundant groundwater fueled its chip heyday in the 1980s, recently demonstrated its disaster resilience when plants were quickly restored after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Near Kumamoto, Sony's image sensor plant and Tokyo Electron are clustered together; TSMC is building a second plant, while Sony is investing 1 trillion yen to begin mass production of next-generation image sensors from 2029. A "Kumamoto Science Park," modeled on Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, is also under construction.
Security concerns are another factor accelerating the cooperation. At a forum on the 21st, Taiwan's Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research stressed building a supply chain within the "democratic camp," and Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs announced a "Taiwan-Japan Joint R&D Plan" that will cover up to 50% of the costs of joint projects in five industries. Cho Jung-tai, president of Taiwan's Executive Yuan, on the 3rd of this month likened the two countries' relationship to a pair of legendary swords.
Soothing the Bond Market: Is the Treasury's Secret Card an Account Balance?
Speculation has emerged that the Treasury General Account (TGA), which holds close to $1 trillion, could be used as the funding source for the long-term Treasury bond purchases outlined by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Issuing short-term Treasuries remains inevitable down the road, but the timing could be delayed, which is expected to give momentum to the long-term bond purchases.
According to CNBC on the 24th, two senior Treasury officials said the department is considering the TGA as an available funding source. The TGA is a cash account the Treasury holds at the Federal Reserve, with about $950 billion currently remaining — above the $600 billion target set under the former Biden administration. Tapping the TGA would give the Treasury considerable firepower to move long-term bond yields.
Last week, the Treasury announced it would double the size of its bond buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion, briefly pushing down 10-year and 30-year yields, which rose again within a day. Bessent noted that the purchase size could exceed $4 billion, but market skepticism persists. On this day, the 10-year traded around 4.70% and the 30-year around 5.23%, slightly lower than the previous day but still at elevated levels.
Because the Treasury did not disclose the funding source when it announced the purchases, the market largely expected an issuance of short-term Treasury bills (T-bills). T-bills are discount securities with short maturities that pay no separate interest. The TGA, by contrast, is an account filled with taxes already collected, and CNBC projected that even using it would reach a limit between next winter and early spring. Forbes noted that because the TGA is also funded by taxes or bond issuance, additional short-term Treasury issuance is ultimately inevitable.
Samsung and SK Face Off at Stanford: What Comes After HBM
Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK hynix (000660.KS), which lead the global high-bandwidth memory (HBM) market, unveiled strategies side by side to ease memory bottlenecks. Samsung Electronics presented custom HBM tailored to each AI processor, while SK hynix put forward advanced packaging technology.
Han Sang-wook, a Technical Leader (TL) on the DRAM design team of Samsung Electronics' memory business division, presented ways for HBM base dies to boost AI computing power at "Hot Chips 2026," held at Stanford University in the United States on the 23rd. The base die is a logic chip at the bottom of an HBM stack of DRAM that controls speed and power. Han pointed to the limits of through-silicon vias (TSV) and physical-layer (PHY) input/output as the key bottlenecks blocking bandwidth expansion.
Samsung Electronics intends to solve this with custom HBM (cHBM). The idea is to strengthen only the functions needed for the characteristics of customers' GPUs (graphics processing units) and NPUs (neural processing units), such as those from Nvidia and AMD, and to convert the PHY into a die-to-die (D2D) connection structure to secure space for adding custom functions. The company also introduced a plan to move memory control within the GPU and some AI computations onto the base die.
SK hynix put forward packaging as its solution. Lee Jae-sik, vice president of SK hynix America, stressed that going forward, not only HBM performance but also GPUs, packaging and foundries must be optimized together with customers. Lee cited changes in structure and materials as a solution to heat generation, and said that while whether it will be applied to HBM4E (the seventh generation) is undecided, the company is researching a hybrid bonding technique. This technique directly connects metal pads without an intermediate material, reducing heat and narrowing the width of TSV circuits, which can increase core die thickness by 24%. He said the company is also developing "iHBM" technology, which applies a high thermal-conductivity material to areas that generate heat.
"Not a Single Drop for Sale": Iran Hits Back at Trump's 'Economic D-Day'
The U.S. administration under Donald Trump is launching an all-out financial offensive to cut off Iran's funding. The plan is to isolate not only Iran but also third countries such as China that serve as a funding channel by purchasing crude oil.
On the 23rd, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a contribution to the Financial Times (FT) that an "economic D-Day" was beginning and that it would be the largest financial offensive ever. Following President Trump, Bessent made clear his intent to apply economic pressure. He warned that forces helping Iran are buying Iranian oil and channeling Iranian funds through exchange houses and free trade zones, and urged them to weigh the consequences of continuing to prop up the Iranian regime.
Iran pushed back strongly. According to Reuters, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), warned that if the economic war continued, not a single drop of crude would be exported, and said Iran would "regard as an act of war" the actions of countries that join and support the U.S. economic war. Even before the sanctions were announced, Iranian cargo ships had been stranded inside and outside the Persian Gulf amid a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, criticized the "economic D-Day" as an attempt to divert attention from an unprecedented U.S. crisis of debt and interest costs.
Some analysts say the third country the United States is targeting is effectively China. As of 2025, China bought more than 90% of Iran's crude oil exports, propping up the Iranian economy. Still, the prevailing view is that China is unlikely to join in. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Vice Minister Miao Deyu met Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi in Beijing on the 17th of this month. Gharibabadi expressed both a determination to defend sovereignty and a willingness to hold diplomatic talks, and Miao responded that China would work to promote reconciliation and dialogue.
