Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Indonesia reviews US proposal for airspace overflight access

    Indonesia reviews US proposal for airspace overflight access

    JAKARTA, Indonesia – In the wake of a newly announced high-profile defense agreement between Washington and Jakarta, Indonesian authorities are currently conducting a careful internal review of a United States proposal to secure expanded overflight access through the country’s sovereign airspace, the nation’s Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday. The American overflight request first entered public discourse via local Indonesian media outlets, emerging just days after the two nations formally established the Major Defense Cooperation Partnership. That landmark agreement was unveiled Monday at the Pentagon by United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, marking a visible deepening of bilateral defense ties between the two countries.

    Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yvonne Mewengkang outlined the parameters of the ongoing review process, noting that the proposal remains in the early stages of internal government evaluation. She emphasized that every aspect of the request is being scrutinized through the country’s existing regulatory framework, with three non-negotiable principles guiding the deliberation: Indonesia’s core national interests, the inviolability of its airspace sovereignty, and the country’s long-held independent and active foreign policy doctrine.

    The Indonesian Defense Ministry echoed this update earlier this week, formally confirming that the U.S. had formally submitted the overflight clearance request and that negotiations are still ongoing. In an official statement shared with the public, the Defense Ministry added that Indonesian negotiators have already pushed through several key adjustments to the draft proposal. A central point of revision is the explicit framing of the draft document as non-binding, meaning it will not enter into force automatically. Instead, any final agreement will still need to pass through additional rounds of discussion via relevant technical working groups and formal national legislative and executive approval procedures before it can be finalized.

  • Malala’s brother Khushal on fleeing the Taliban and facing the manosphere

    Malala’s brother Khushal on fleeing the Taliban and facing the manosphere

    More than 11 years after the Taliban shooting that forever altered his family’s path, 25-year-old Khushal Yousafzai has broken his silence about the lingering psychological trauma, mental health battles, and unexpected entanglement with online manosphere communities that followed the attack on his older sister, global girls’ education advocate Malala Yousafzai. In a raw, vulnerable new interview with BBC Asian Network’s Amber Haque, Khushal recounts the day that destroyed his childhood and shaped every year that followed.

    It was 2012, when Khushal was just 12 years old, and Malala — then 15 — was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while riding home from school on a bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Malala had long drawn the militant group’s anger for her outspoken activism demanding equal access to education for girls. On the day of the attack, Khushal was playing video games at home when his cousin delivered the first terrible news that his sister had been injured; minutes later, the family learned the bullet had struck her head. “I remember going into my sister’s room where you can see all the trophies. I felt like I was going to pass out,” he told Haque. “Seconds felt like minutes, minutes were hours and hours were days.”

    The attack that didn’t kill Malala would go on to launch her global advocacy work, which earned her a Nobel Peace Prize just three years later. She was immediately evacuated to the United Kingdom for urgent life-saving treatment, and Khushal and the rest of the Yousafzai family eventually resettled in the country alongside her. But for the 12-year-old Khushal, the chaos of the attack and sudden uprooting left a void of rage and grief that would fester for more than a decade. “It left me with so much hate and anger in my heart,” he said. “When I was in the UK, my life mission was like: ‘I’m going to build myself, go back and take revenge.’”

    Over the years, Khushal navigated life in the public eye surrounded by family members celebrated globally for turning their pain into transformative, world-changing good. While he rejects the narrative that he lived in his sister’s shadow, he carried a quiet pressure: watching Malala and their father Ziauddin turn their trauma into progress left him grappling with deep feelings of inadequacy. “I just thought, if I’m not bringing positive change into the world, then I’m not doing enough,” he explained. It was only a few months ago that he finally acknowledged he had spent years in denial about how unprocessed that pressure and trauma truly were. “I pretended my [own] expectations are bigger than what the world expects of me,” he said. At his lowest, he recalled feeling like a burden as the world focused its attention and support on Malala’s recovery, asking himself, “Everyone around me is helping my sister. What am I doing? I didn’t see a point in my existence.”

    That persistent sense of not being good enough left Khushal vulnerable to the toxic pull of online manosphere spaces, a network of forums, social media accounts, and influencers that promote a rigid, traditionalist vision of masculinity where men hold dominant power over women. What first drew him in, he said, was the community’s outward focus on self-improvement — a message that filled a gap when he needed it most. “Go to the gym, work on yourself. So that message really drew me in,” he said.

    But the harmful underbelly of the movement quickly trapped him in a destructive cycle. As influencers began selling harsh life lessons that framed any struggle as a personal failure, Khushal — who had spent years battling undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and cannabis addiction — began to see his own mental health challenges as proof he was a “loser”. The resulting shame only fueled his unhealthy coping mechanisms, creating an unbreakable loop: “What happens is that you get into a shame cycle. So you feel like you’re a horrible human. Whenever I smoked weed, I felt like a horrible human being. You want to escape that feeling, so you fall back to that bad habit. It becomes a loop.”

    Khushal ultimately broke free from the influence of manosphere ideology after confronting its misogynistic core, a worldview that directly contradicted everything his family stands for. “My sister took a bullet for education,” he said. “They might as well be speaking about my mother and my sister. And when I started putting [things] into perspective, I started to draw myself away from those spaces.” He also credits his father’s compassion and the grace he extended when the manosphere teaches that vulnerability is unforgivable for helping him begin to heal.

    Today, Khushal is speaking out to help other people who may be struggling with unprocessed trauma and vulnerability to toxic online ideologies. He emphasizes that radicalization and harmful indoctrination do not happen in a vacuum: even he acknowledges that his own privilege of a supportive family committed to gender equality kept him from falling prey to far more dangerous extremist groups like the Taliban. “If I was born in another household where my parents were poor, couldn’t afford my education, I could have also become easily radicalised and indoctrinated by the Taliban,” he said.

    His core message for people navigating similar battles is that vulnerability is not weakness, and shame is the biggest barrier to healing. “We need to change the narrative that if you are vulnerable about your struggles, it’s a sign of weakness,” he said. For him, breaking the shame cycle required allowing himself to finally grieve and break down: “When I hit rock bottom, when it was really tough and I’d taken pride that I hadn’t cried for six months – then I broke down. I had the best cry of my life. I felt so healed and relieved after.” Access to a trusted support system of family and friends who will hold space for honest, difficult conversations, he says, is the greatest source of strength for anyone working through trauma.

    For anyone affected by the mental health issues discussed in this interview, support and resources are available via BBC Action Line. The full conversation with Khushal Yousafzai is available to listen to on BBC Asian Network Trending.

  • Chatty gibbon has fun with caretaker in Yunnan

    Chatty gibbon has fun with caretaker in Yunnan

    A sweet, playful moment between a protected white-browed gibbon and his human caretaker at Yunnan’s Taiyanghe National Forest Park has won over thousands of social media users across China, after footage of their friendly exchange spread widely online earlier this month.

    The young gibbon, known to park staff as Dingding, formed the adorable bond during a routine walk through the reserve’s protected green spaces. As caretaker Xu Yanfang made her way through the park to her next scheduled task, Dingding wrapped his long arms tightly around her wrist, chattering constantly in a playful call-and-response exchange that mirrored casual conversation with a close friend. The warm, unscripted moment was captured on camera and quickly circulated among netizens, who praised the gentle connection between the human caretaker and the wild animal.

    As a national first-class protected species in China, white-browed gibbons are one of the country’s most vulnerable wild primate populations, and Taiyanghe National Forest Park has emerged as a key hub for conservation and care for these rare animals. For Dingding, daily life at the Pu’er-based reserve is filled with low-stakes adventure and companionship beyond his interactions with human staff. He shares the sprawling, biodiverse park with a host of other native species, including red pandas, Sumatran rhinoceroses, and Asian bearcats, and regularly spends his days playing and roaming through the forest alongside his wild neighbors.

    Conservation efforts across Yunnan have expanded steadily in recent years, expanding protected habitats and boosting populations of once-declining native species. This viral moment has drawn new public attention to the work of park caretakers and conservationists, who dedicate their work to protecting vulnerable wildlife and fostering safe, sustainable environments for rare species to thrive.

  • Xiong’an-Shangqiu high-speed rail section enters testing phase

    Xiong’an-Shangqiu high-speed rail section enters testing phase

    China’s expanding national high-speed rail network hit a major milestone this week, as the Xiong’an-Shangqiu section of the strategic Beijing-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway kicked off its official commissioning and testing phase on Wednesday, according to China Railway Beijing Group.

    The 552-kilometer new corridor, engineered to support maximum operating speeds of 350 kilometers per hour, links Xiong’an New Area — a nationally significant development zone in Hebei province — with Shangqiu, a key transport hub in central China’s Henan province. As a core segment of the Beijing-Hong Kong high-speed rail corridor, this line forms a critical part of China’s national “eight vertical and eight horizontal” high-speed rail network blueprint, which is designed to create a cohesive, efficient nationwide transport system.

    Local and national transport authorities note that once operational, the new line will strengthen connectivity across the integrated Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, expand and optimize the regional rail network, and provide targeted infrastructure support to drive the ongoing growth and development of Xiong’an New Area.

    Construction work on the Hebei portion of the line first got underway in September 2022. The testing phase officially launched at 2 p.m. Wednesday, when an inspection and test train departed from Xiong’an Railway Station to begin the three-month trial process that will run for 80 days total.

    Throughout the commissioning period, specialized test rolling stock and precision monitoring equipment will conduct comprehensive evaluations of every critical system across the route. This includes assessments of the line’s power supply infrastructure, communication networks, signaling systems, disaster monitoring mechanisms, as well as the structural integrity of tracks, bridges and other civil engineering works. These rigorous tests are designed to verify that all infrastructure meets safety and operational standards ahead of the line’s full commercial opening to passengers.

  • PLA Navy to mark 77th anniversary with open-house events

    PLA Navy to mark 77th anniversary with open-house events

    China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is preparing to open its military facilities to civilian visitors next week, launching a series of public open-house events to commemorate the 77th anniversary of its founding. All three of the PLA Navy’s major fleets — the North Sea Fleet, East Sea Fleet, and South Sea Fleet — have confirmed that they will offer rare public access to active warships across multiple coastal cities, in a move designed to strengthen bonds between the military and the general public and showcase the service’s decades of modernization advancement.

    The founding date of the PLA Navy traces back to April 23, 1949, when the force was established in Baimamiao township, Jiangsu province. This historical date was officially designated as the service’s annual anniversary in 1989, making 2026 the 77th year since the navy’s founding.

    The North Sea Fleet will host public visits in two northern coastal cities: Qingdao, Shandong province and Dalian, Liaoning province. In Qingdao, events will run from April 22 to 26 across two venues, Qingdao Port and the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center Dock, while open days in Dalian are scheduled for April 25 and 26. A diverse lineup of active naval vessels will be on display for visitors, including the advanced Type 052D guided-missile destroyer, Type 054A guided-missile frigate, and Type 903 integrated supply ship, covering major frontline vessel classes in the PLA Navy’s current fleet.

    For the South Sea Fleet, public events will be held from April 23 to 26 across five locations in southern China: Guangzhou and Zhanjiang in Guangdong province, Sanya and Danzhou in Hainan province, and Beihai in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Attendees at these southern venues will have the opportunity to tour guided-missile destroyers and amphibious transport ships.

    Covering eastern and southeastern coastal regions, the East Sea Fleet will open its facilities to the public from April 21 to 26 across seven cities: Ningbo, Shanghai, Zhoushan, Taizhou, Nantong, Xiamen, and Shantou.

    To manage visitor numbers and ensure a smooth experience, all public spots for the open-house events are allocated through a first-come, first-served reservation system. Interested members of the public can book their visits through officially designated WeChat public accounts and dedicated event websites.

    The public outreach initiative marks one of the most extensive nationwide open-house events held by the PLA Navy in recent years, reflecting the service’s growing transparency and its commitment to building public understanding of national maritime defense.

  • What to know about Pakistan’s army chief and his role as mediator between Iran and the US

    What to know about Pakistan’s army chief and his role as mediator between Iran and the US

    A brief 15-second video shared by Iran’s top diplomat has thrown Pakistan’s influential army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, back into international focus. The clip, posted to X by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, captured the moment Munir stepped off a plane in Tehran, greeted with a warm fraternal embrace. The visit marked Munir’s latest move in Pakistan’s high-stakes diplomatic push to de-escalate tensions between Iran and the United States, and to lay the groundwork for a second round of direct negotiations between the two long-hostile nations.

    For weeks, Pakistan’s public mediation efforts have centered on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who have actively shared updates of their work via social media and official statements. But behind the public facade, one key figure has driven much of the process: Pakistan’s most powerful military leader, Asim Munir. Multiple anonymous Pakistani officials, authorized to discuss the sensitive talks only off the record, have outlined Munir’s central, underreported role in the ongoing mediation.

    Weeks ago, when Pakistan formally announced it would facilitate talks between Washington and Tehran, Sharif assigned Munir to maintain confidential backchannel communications with political and military stakeholders from both sides. The core goal of these quiet talks has been to dial back rising tensions that threatened to spiral into a wider regional crisis. While few concrete details of Munir’s meetings or engagements have been released to the public, his early behind-the-scenes work has already yielded tangible progress: Pakistan succeeded in bringing U.S. and Iranian delegations together for rare face-to-face negotiations in Islamabad just last week.

    Though that first round of talks did not result in a signed formal agreement, it kept the critical communication channel open between the two nations. Officials credit Munir with playing an indispensable supporting role in creating that opening. Just days after the initial Islamabad talks wrapped, Pakistani diplomacy continued unabated, and both sides agreed in principle to explore a second negotiation round. It was that push that led Munir to travel to Tehran this Wednesday to personally win Iran’s buy-in for the next round of discussions.

    Araghchi’s public welcome of the Pakistani army chief confirmed the high level of trust Iranian leadership places in Munir. Charles Lyons-Jones, a research fellow at the Australia-based Lowy Institute, notes that while Sharif and Dar occupy the public face of the mediation effort, Munir is the ultimate decision-maker driving the process.

    Munir’s outsized influence in Pakistani politics is no accident. In December, the federal government appointed him to dual roles as chief of army staff and chief of defense forces, cementing his position as the country’s most powerful military figure. Just months before that appointment, he was promoted to the rank of field marshal, making him only the second military officer in Pakistan’s entire history to hold the prestigious title. Lyons-Jones argues that Munir is the most powerful Pakistani leader since former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, with full authority over military promotions, civilian government policy direction, and the military’s far-reaching commercial holdings.

    A 57-year-old born to a lower-middle-class family in Rawalpindi, Munir enlisted in the Pakistani military in 1986, beginning his service in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the disputed territory claimed by both Pakistan and India. He went on to serve in postings across the country, and spent years in Saudi Arabia as a colonel under a long-standing bilateral agreement that sees Pakistani military personnel train Saudi forces. During that posting, he mastered Arabic and developed deep firsthand insight into Middle Eastern politics and regional culture, according to colleagues who have worked with him. He later rose through the senior ranks to become the only army chief in Pakistan’s history to lead both of the country’s top intelligence agencies: Military Intelligence and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

    Munir has also built an unusual level of rapport with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has publicly called Munir “my favorite field marshal” — a nod to the close personal relationship between the two leaders. Lyons-Jones explains that this pre-existing bond gives Pakistan a unique advantage as a mediator: the country is the only regional power that maintains strong, productive ties with Iran, the Gulf Arab states, and the United States simultaneously.

    This is not the first high-stakes crisis Munir has navigated. During the 2024 four-day border clash between India and Pakistan that brought the two nuclear-armed neighbors to the brink of full conflict, Munir played a central role in shaping Pakistan’s de-escalatory strategy before Trump announced he had helped broker a ceasefire. When Iran launched cross-border strikes into Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province earlier this year, targeting what Tehran claimed were militant positions, Munir backed a measured, proportional response that included limited retaliatory strikes against militant hideouts across the border, avoiding an open escalation of conflict. He took a similar calibrated approach to recurring border tensions with Afghanistan over cross-border militant activity, associates say.

    Those who know Munir personally describe him as a leader who actively seeks out high-risk, high-stakes assignments that other figures shy away from. He is also widely respected as a hafiz — a term for someone who has fully memorized the Quran — and draws his decision-making framework from his religious beliefs. “He understands Islam, he understands the Quran, and he believes in what it teaches,” said Syed Mohammad Ali, a close associate of Munir. “His concepts are very clear: he does what others fear to do.” Ali describes Munir as a deliberate, thoughtful decision-maker: “He thinks many times before taking a decision, and once he decides, he pursues it with full dedication, leaving the outcome to God.”

    Munir’s Tehran visit also underscores the level of confidence Iranian leaders have in him, even amid heightened security risks. Despite ongoing threats following recent U.S. and Israeli strikes, senior Iranian officials openly traveled to greet him at the airport, a move that put their locations at risk of exposure, a sign of the trust both sides place in the Pakistani army chief’s ability to move the mediation process forward.

  • CityUHK (Dongguan) celebrates second anniversary

    CityUHK (Dongguan) celebrates second anniversary

    April 16, 2026, marks a key milestone for one of China’s newest innovative higher education institutions: City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan) (CityUHK (Dongguan)) celebrates its second anniversary since its official establishment.

    To chronicle the young campus’s remarkable two-year trajectory of expansion and innovation, a China Daily Website team arranged a unique on-site journey, pairing Douglas Dueno, an American expert contributing to the outlet, with Ivy Su, a member of the university’s very first cohort of graduates. Together, the pair walked across the modern campus to explore the foundations that have driven the institution’s fast rise.

    Their tour covered the full range of cutting-edge infrastructure and student-centered amenities that set CityUHK (Dongguan) apart. They stopped at the university’s advanced research laboratories, which are equipped with top-tier instrumentation to support cross-disciplinary innovation, before moving on to the modern, resource-rich library built to facilitate both student learning and academic collaboration. The tour also highlighted the institution’s immersive all-English teaching model designed to prepare students for global career paths, spacious two-person student dormitories that prioritize comfortable campus living, and expansive, well-maintained sports facilities that support student wellness and extracurricular engagement.

    As the young institution enters its third year of operation, its leadership has laid out clear long-term goals: to continue expanding academic and research capacity, sustain its momentum of rapid, high-quality growth, and evolve into a world-class higher education institution recognized for uncompromising excellence in research, teaching, and talent development. Audiences can view the full recorded campus tour via China Daily’s original video feature to learn more about the university’s vision and progress.

  • Sculptor remolds clay modeling for new generation

    Sculptor remolds clay modeling for new generation

    Nestled in Dongli District, Tianjin, the historic Clay Figure Zhang studio has long been home to grand, traditional sculptures of legendary Chinese figures like Guan Yu and Confucius. This Spring Festival, however, a new addition drew wide attention: a collection of vivid, compact clay figurines crafted to celebrate the Year of the Horse, bridging centuries-old craft with contemporary appeal.

    As the sixth-generation custodian of Clay Figure Zhang — a Tianjin-origin folk art form inscribed as a national intangible cultural heritage of China in 2006 — Zhang Yu walks a careful line: he upholds time-honored craftsmanship while constantly exploring fresh modes of expression to connect with younger generations.

    With a history stretching more than 200 years, Clay Figure Zhang has earned global acclaim for its strikingly lifelike, hand-painted figurines, which are molded from specially processed clay sourced from local canals. The craft has long been celebrated for its vivid realism, capturing everything from mythic heroes and Peking Opera characters to the subtle, intimate details of ordinary daily life.

    Zhang emphasizes that safeguarding the authenticity of the centuries-old tradition does not equal rigidly clinging to outdated practices. “Our works, even when rooted in tradition, need to resonate with modern viewers if the craft is to survive and thrive,” he explained.

    In his work of preservation, strict adherence to the craft’s traditional, multi-step production process remains non-negotiable. Creating a single finished Clay Figure Zhang figurine requires three core phases — sculpting, hand-painting, and firing — broken down into 18 separate, meticulous steps that demand years of practice to master.

    The raw clay itself follows a rigorous preparation process: it is harvested from the banks of Tianjin’s South Grand Canal, carefully sorted, left to air-dry naturally for three full years, then kneaded repeatedly to build the ideal balance of adhesiveness and breathability that gives Clay Figure Zhang its signature texture and durability.

    The sculpting process begins with building a internal support framework, followed by incremental layering of clay, gradual refining of the figure’s contours, and painstaking work on tiny, high-detail features such as ears, a step that only skilled artisans can execute with consistent precision.

    Zhang credits the craft’s 200 years of cross-generational popularity to its enduring connection to everyday life. “The heart of Clay Figure Zhang creation has always been the lives of ordinary people, or vivid portrayals of characters people know from traditional theater,” he said. “Traditional culture is never an abstract concept. It’s something that flows naturally through our daily lives, and that is what we strive to carry forward in every piece we make.”

  • Paper-cutting pioneer fuses scissors with software

    Paper-cutting pioneer fuses scissors with software

    Centuries-old traditional Chinese crafts are finding new life in the 21st century, thanks to innovators willing to bridge time-honored skills and cutting-edge digital tools. For Hao Guifen, a 67-year-old inheritor of Yangliuqing paper-cutting, a 300-year-old folk craft rooted in northern China, that transformation has turned her work into a globally recognized cultural treasure. Today, her reimagined take on the art form even serves as a recurring national gift for international diplomatic exchange.

    Hao’s journey of artistic revolution began back in the 1990s, when she first stepped away from the monochromatic red paper that has long defined traditional Chinese paper-cutting, used most commonly for holiday window decorations. Over decades of refinement, she organized her evolved creative system into four core technical pillars, with multilayered and dyed paper-cutting emerging as the signature innovations that set her work apart.

    The biggest breakthrough came when Hao turned to technology to solve a persistent creative challenge. As she pushed the boundaries of her craft to create more intricate layered works, she found her naked eye could no longer accurately distinguish the subtle color gradients needed for seamless separation of layers. That barrier fell when a younger member of her family introduced her to computer-aided design, which now helps her precisely decompose patterns into individual layers. Today, her most complex pieces feature up to 18 stacked layers of hand-cut colored paper, creating a nuanced three-dimensional effect that mimics the depth of fine art painting.

    Walk into Hao’s Tianjin-based studio in Xiqing District, and visitors are immediately met with walls lined with paper-cutting works spanning every size and theme. While traditional motifs remain a core part of her practice—each carrying the symbolic meaning that has long anchored folk art—she has also expanded her subjects to fit modern tastes. A lush persimmon tree, for example, plays on the Chinese homophone for persimmon and “affairs” to convey the traditional wish “may all things go as you desire”, while a layered rolling mountain landscape symbolizes enduring prosperity and steady, long-lasting good fortune. Alongside these classic themes, she also creates designs of popular anime characters that resonate with younger audiences, bringing the ancient craft into the lived experience of modern generations.

    Many of her large-scale hanging works stretch more than two meters long, with intricate details and rich, vivid coloration that completely upend common expectations of paper-cutting. At first glance, many visitors mistake her finely layered works for oil paintings or delicate fine-brush Chinese watercolors—only on close inspection do they notice the precise, hand-cut edges that reveal the work’s true identity. Her giant panda design is a perfect example: every shade of the animal’s iconic black-and-white coat comes from a separate, individually cut layer of paper, stacked to create subtle light and shadow that gives the piece remarkable depth.

    Yangliuqing paper-cutting was first recognized as an intangible cultural heritage of Tianjin when it was added to the city’s second batch of protected heritage items back in 2009. Since then, Hao’s innovative fusion of traditional scissors work and modern digital design has elevated the craft far beyond its local roots, bringing it to a global audience and securing its place as a distinctive representative of Chinese traditional culture on the world stage. As she continues to teach the craft to a new generation of enthusiasts, her work proves that even centuries-old traditions can thrive when paired with creative adaptation and modern innovation.

  • Taiwan’s chipmaker TSMC reports 58% jump in profit, warns about Iran war impacts

    Taiwan’s chipmaker TSMC reports 58% jump in profit, warns about Iran war impacts

    The world’s largest contract chipmaker and a critical supply chain partner for major tech firms including Apple and Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), has delivered blowout first-quarter financial results, with profit surging nearly 60% year-over-year amid an unrelenting global boom in artificial intelligence that has sent demand for advanced semiconductors soaring.

    Reporting its Q1 2025 earnings on Thursday from its Hong Kong-based press update, TSMC announced a record net quarterly profit of 572.5 billion new Taiwan dollars, equal to approximately $18.1 billion. This figure far outpaced the consensus forecasts from industry analysts, marking a 58.3% increase from the 361.6 billion new Taiwan dollars ($11.5 billion) profit the firm posted in the same quarter one year prior. Sequentially, the result also represented a 13.2% gain compared to TSMC’s final quarter 2024 performance. Revenue for the first three months of the year hit $35.9 billion, an increase of 8.4% from the prior quarter. Looking ahead to the ongoing April-June second quarter, the chipmaker projects revenue will grow further, landing in a range between $39 billion and $40.2 billion.

    The explosive profit growth comes as demand for AI-capable semiconductors continues its upward trajectory across the global tech industry. TSMC, which dominates the market for cutting-edge advanced chips, has responded by ramping up expansion of its manufacturing footprint across three regions: Taiwan, the United States, and Japan. The company’s expansion efforts center on ramping up output of 3-nanometer semiconductors, the most advanced commercial chip node currently available that powers everything from high-end smartphones to AI data center accelerators.

    “AI-related demand continues to be extremely robust,” TSMC Chief Executive Officer and Chairman C.C. Wei stated during the company’s post-earnings press conference Thursday. “Our conviction in the multi-year AI megatrend remains high, and we believe the demand for semiconductors will continue to be very fundamental.”

    To meet this sustained projected demand, TSMC has locked in massive expansion commitments, including a $165 billion plan to build new fabrication facilities in Arizona. On Thursday, the company confirmed that its total capital spending over the next three years will be “significantly higher” than spending over the past three years as it scales up capacity. Earlier, the firm already announced it would raise its 2025 capital expenditure budget to a range of $52 billion to $56 billion, up from roughly $40 billion in 2024. Officials now expect 2026 capital spending will land toward the upper end of that annual range.

    Even with the strong results and optimistic outlook for AI demand, TSMC did flag growing risks stemming from the ongoing Iran war, which has roiled global energy and commodity markets. The conflict has pushed up input costs across global supply chains, and disrupted global supplies of critical manufacturing inputs including specialty chemicals and helium, a rare gas that is essential to multiple chipmaking processes.

    Wendell Huang, TSMC’s Chief Financial Officer, noted that while rising costs tied to the Iran conflict could put downward pressure on profit margins in coming quarters, the company has proactively built up safety stock of key materials including helium. Huang added that the firm does not expect any immediate disruption to its manufacturing operations as a result of the ongoing market volatility.