正在有貿易順差1兆美元的中國, 向世界推銷其免稅島嶼（2/2）

China Sells the World on Its Duty-Free Island, Amid a $1 Trillion Trade Surplus (2/2)

Policies meant to lure importers to Hainan, a resort island off China’s coast, signal an opening up, Beijing says. One expert calls it a “bait and switch.”

By Andrew Higgins

Jan. 7, 2026

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Although highly restricted, the possibility of access to the Chinese market beyond Hainan is already attracting a few foreign companies that would otherwise face high tariffs trying to sell to Guangdong or other Chinese provinces.

Nesredin Hussein, a coffee merchant from Ethiopia, recently rented a warehouse near Haikou to store beans imported to the island duty-free. He plans to buy roasting equipment so he can process coffee brought into Hainan tariff-free and then ship it to other parts of China for sale without paying a tariff or tax.

“For me, this is a very good opportunity” given China’s voracious appetite for coffee, he said, noting that he would otherwise have to pay up to 30 percent in tariffs and other taxes on any beans he imported into mainland China directly. “Here the rate is zero,” he said, after a visit with his wife and three children to the Hainan branch of Harrow School, an elite British boarding school.

Less convinced is Kamthon Wangudom, an ethnic Chinese businessman from Thailand who, invited to Hainan in December to visit a village where his ancestors lived, was taken first to an exhibition center pitching the island’s investment opportunities. He said his renewable energy company in Bangkok had already invested in Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines but was staying away from China because it “is too big and too complicated.” He is skeptical the new tariff regime will change much.

Hainan likes to compare itself to Hawaii for its palm-fringed beaches and resorts; like Hawaii, it is also studded with military facilities. These include a giant naval base near the southern resort town of Sanya that has grown rapidly as China asserted its claims over the South China Sea. Mr. Xi visited Hainan in November to tout the duty-free policies. But his main purpose was to inspect the naval base and attend the commissioning of a new aircraft carrier. Mr. Xi made clear that the strategic importance of Hainan means that security interests must trump economic ambitions.

Communist Party officials have plastered Haikou with red banners praising Mr. Xi and a “new era of openness.” Yet they declined to be interviewed for this article and ordered private companies on the island not to discuss how the new tariff-free regime might help or hurt their business.

Officials have good reason to be jittery. A few days before the tariff-free system began last month, a court in Shanghai sentenced the island’s former longtime Communist Party leader, Luo Baoming, to 15 years in jail for taking more than 113 million yuan (about $16 million) in bribes over a nearly three-decade career.

Mr. Luo was the latest senior Hainan official to be sent to jail in recent years for corruption.

Hainan has a history of big plans that often disappoint, starting with its designation as China’s last but biggest Special Economic Zone in 1988, a high tide of cooperation with foreign business that has receded rapidly since Mr. Xi came to power in 2012.

Unable to match the extraordinary economic growth of rival special zones like Shenzhen, next to Hong Kong, Hainan was for years largely seen as a sunny also-ran. It built up its tourist industry, including medical tourism, and constructed new highways and high-speed railway lines. In the 1990s, it spawned a property crash on the island, the first in China under communism.

Mr. Xi first announced plans to turn Hainan into a free-trade mecca in 2018. The project began with the opening of huge duty-free malls in Haikou and Sanya. This attracted Chinese tourists looking for discounted foreign luxury brands but failed to reverse the economic fortunes of an island still scarred by the impact of the property meltdown.

Today’s development of Hainan’s free port “faces tough reality checks,” according to a study by the Asia Competitiveness Institute at the National University of Singapore. Hainan is far less successful than other Chinese Special Economic Zones and attracts relatively little direct foreign investment, the report said.

For others, however, the importance of Hainan is its role as a test ground for innovative policies that don’t rock the boat.

The free trade port experiment will allow China to try out new approaches to such things as finance, education and taxes, said Lauren Johnson, founder of New South Economics, a consultancy in Melbourne, Australia, “while concurrently protecting the status quo on the mainland.”

Translation

正在有貿易順差1兆美元的中國, 向世界推銷其免稅島嶼（2/2）

北京方面表示，旨在吸引進口商前往中國沿海度假島嶼海南的政策標誌著中國正在開放市場。一位專家稱之為「誘餌和轉變」。

（繼續）

外國公司如果試圖向廣東或其他中國省份銷售產品，將面臨高關稅。但儘管受到諸多限制，進入中國海南以外地區的市場仍可能性已經吸引了一些外國公司。

來自埃塞俄比亞的咖啡商Nesredin Hussein最近在海口附近租了一個倉庫，用於儲存免稅進口到海南的咖啡豆。他計劃購買烘焙設備，以便加工免稅運入海南的咖啡，然後將其運往中國其他地區銷售，而無需繳納關稅或稅款。

他說道:「對我來說，這是一個絕佳的機會」，並指出中國對咖啡需求巨大, 他意識到如果直接進口到中國大陸的咖啡豆將需要繳納高達30%的關稅和其他稅費。他帶著妻子和三個孩子參觀了英國精英寄宿學校哈羅公學的海南分校後說道: 「在這裡稅率是零」。

來自泰國的華裔商人Kamthon Wangudom則對此持不同看法。去年12月，他受邀前往海南探訪祖籍村莊，卻先被帶到一個推廣海南投資機會的展覽中心。他表示，他在曼谷的再生能源公司已經在台灣、日本和菲律賓投資，但一直避開中國，因為中國「太大，太複雜」。他懷疑新的關稅制度能否帶來多大改變。

海南喜歡將自己比喻為夏威夷，因為那裡有棕櫚樹環繞的海灘和度假勝地；和夏威夷一樣，海南也遍布軍事設施。其中包括位於南部度假勝地三亞附近的巨型海軍基地，隨著中國在南海問題上主張主權，基地迅速擴張。習近平主席去年11月訪問海南去宣傳免稅政策。但他此行的主要目的是視察海軍基地並出席一艘新航空母艦的服役儀式。習近平主席明確表示，海南的戰略重要性意味著安全利益必須高於經濟​​利益追求。

中共官員在海口張貼了大量讚揚習近平主席和「新開放時代」的紅色橫幅。然而，他們拒絕就本文接受採訪，並命令島上的私人企業不得討論新的免稅制度可能對其業務產生幫助或損害。

官員的擔憂不無道理。就在上個月免稅制度生效前幾天，上海法院判處海南前長期擔任中共領導人的Luo Baoming 15年有期徒刑，罪名是他在近30年的從政生涯中收受了超過1.13億元人民幣（約合1600萬美元）的賄賂。

Luo是近年來海南省因貪腐被判入獄的最新一位高級官員。

海南省歷來雄心勃勃，但往往事與願違。 1988年，海南被指定為中國最後一個也是最大的經濟特區，與外國企業的合作蓬勃發展，但自習近平2012年上台以來，這種合作勢頭迅速減弱。

由於無法與香港附近的深圳特區等競爭對手的驚人經濟成長相比，海南多年來一直被視為一個「陽光明媚的二流對手」。海南發展了旅遊業，包括醫療旅遊，並建造了新的高速公路和高鐵。在1990年代，海南爆發了房地產泡沫破裂，這是中國共產黨執政以來的第一次。

2018年，習近平首次宣佈計劃將海南打造為自由貿易中心。該計劃首先在海口和三亞開設了大型免稅購物中心。這吸引了前來尋找打折扣的外國奢侈品牌的中國遊客，但卻未能扭轉海南島的經濟命運，使其擺脫房地產崩盤帶來的創傷。

新加坡國立大學亞洲競爭力研究所的一項研究指出，海南自由港如今的發展「面臨嚴峻的現實考驗」。報告稱，海南遠不如其他中國經濟特區成功，吸引的外國直接投資也相對較少。

然而，對其他人來說，海南的重要性在於它能夠作為創新政策的試驗場，而又不會引發動盪。

澳洲墨爾本顧問公司新南威爾斯經濟諮詢公司創辦人Lauren Johnson表示，自由貿易港的試點將使中國能夠在金融、教育和稅收等領域嘗試新的方法，「同時又能維持大陸的現狀」。

So, most foreign goods can flow freely into Hainan now. But those imports are not allowed to leave the island for other parts of the country unless stringent conditions are met. These policies are meant to prevent the tariff-free imports to Hainan from seeping into other parts of the country, where high tariffs remain in force. Goods imported to Hainan cannot be shipped to other parts of China duty-free unless they have been processed in ways that increase their value by at least 30 percent. Although highly restricted, the possibility of access to the Chinese market beyond Hainan is already attracting a few foreign companies that would otherwise face high tariffs trying to sell to Guangdong or other Chinese provinces. I am interested in knowing whether this experiment will succeed.

正在有貿易順差1兆美元的中國, 向世界推銷其免稅島嶼（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

China Sells the World on Its Duty-Free Island, Amid a $1 Trillion Trade Surplus (1/2)

Policies meant to lure importers to Hainan, a resort island off China’s coast, signal an opening up, Beijing says. One expert calls it a “bait and switch.”

By Andrew Higgins

Jan. 7, 2026

With tariffs rising around the world and President Trump vowing an end to decades of globalization, China’s leadership is trumpeting a tropical island as proof that it is moving in the opposite direction.

The island of Hainan — a province of China off the country’s southern coast 50 times the size of Singapore — last month scrapped tariffs on most imports, slashed corporate and individual taxes and declared itself the world’s largest “free trade port.” China declared it an emblem of its readiness for two-way trade with the world.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, called Hainan “a significant gateway leading China’s opening up in the new era.”

As portrayed by Beijing, Hainan’s experiment with tariff-free trade recalls the spirit of China’s early reform era after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The Communist Party ditched socialist dogma and began testing bold free-market policies in certain areas. Those that worked were rolled out more widely.

China’s place in global trade is very different now. The country has grown into the world’s unrivaled manufacturing power and second-largest economy. Mr. Xi has repeatedly called for self-reliance and worked to ensure that China is never dependent on anything foreign. He has shown little interest in altering the high tariffs and export-focused policies that helped give China a gargantuan $1 trillion trade surplus last year.

“There is no sign that Hainan is a forerunner for a broader and more systematic opening up of the national economy,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute, an Australian research center. “At a time of record trade surpluses,” he added, Hainan’s new role as a free trade entrepôt “has a strong whiff of bait and switch about it in political and P.R. terms.”

Most foreign goods can now flow freely into Hainan, whose 10 million people account for less than 1 percent of China’s total population. But those imports are not allowed to leave the island for other parts of the country unless stringent conditions are met.

The combination of policies is meant to prevent the tariff-free imports to Hainan from seeping into other parts of the country, where high tariffs remain in force.

That China has no plans to abandon its protectionist trade policies was made clear a few days after the Hainan Free Trade Port began working on Dec. 18: The commerce ministry in Beijing imposed tariffs of up to 42.7 percent on dairy imports to China from Europe.

On the last day of the year, the ministry announced what it called “safeguard measures on imported beef,” a system of quotas and tariffs of 55 percent designed to limit imports. And on Tuesday, it said it would put tight controls on exports of goods to Japan that have dual civilian and military uses.

Goods imported to Hainan cannot be shipped to other parts of China duty-free unless they have been processed in ways that increase their value by at least 30 percent.

At Haikou’s New Port, a gigantic passenger and cargo terminal in the provincial capital, ships sail night and day to the neighboring province of Guangdong. But what used to be a domestic transport hub has become in effect an international border. The Chinese customs service controls the flow of goods out of Hainan to elsewhere in China, checking trucks for any duty-free goods that are being smuggled into the rest of the country.

(to be continued)

Translation

正在有貿易順差1兆美元的中國, 向世界推銷其免稅島嶼（1/2）

北京方面表示，旨在吸引進口商前往中國海南島, 一個沿海度假島嶼的政策，標誌著中國正在走向開放。一位專家稱之為「誘餌和轉變」。

隨著全球關稅不斷上升，特朗普總統誓言要終結數十年的全球化進程，但中國領導層大肆宣傳一座熱帶島嶼，證明中國正在朝著相反的方向發展。

海南島 - 位於中國南部沿海，面積是新加坡的50倍 - 上個月取消了大部分進口商品的關稅，大幅削減了企業和個人所得稅，並宣布自己是世界上最大的「自由貿易港」。中國稱其為與世界開展雙向貿易的象徵。

中國最高領導人習近平稱海南為「引領中國新時代對外開放的重要門戶」。

北京方面認為，海南的零關稅貿易試驗讓人想起1976年毛澤東逝世後中國改革開放初期的精神。當時，中國共產黨摒棄了社會主義教條，開始在某些領域試行大膽的自由市場政策。那些發現行之有效的政策被廣泛推廣。

如今，中國在全球貿易中的地位已截然不同。中國已發展成為世界首屈一指的製造業強國和第二大經濟體。習近平主席多次呼籲自力更生，並致力於確保中國永遠不依賴任何外國。他似乎没有興趣對改變高入口關稅和出口導向政策，而正是這些政策幫助中國在去年實現了高達1兆美元的貿易順差。

澳洲洛伊研究所東亞高級研究員Richard McGregor表示:「沒有任何跡象表明海南是更廣泛、更具系統性開放國民經濟的先驅」。他補充道: 「在貿易順差創歷史新高之際」，海南作為自由貿易轉口港的新角色，「從政治和公關角度來看，帶有濃厚的誘餌和轉變意味」。

如今，大部分外國商品可以自由流入海南島，該島人口僅1,000萬，佔中國總人口的不到1%。但除非滿足嚴格的條件，這些進口商品不得離開海南島，流入中國其他地區。

這一系列政策旨在防止免稅進口到海南的商品流入中國其他地區，因為這些地區仍然實施高關稅。

中國沒有放棄貿易保護主義政策的計劃就已昭然若揭, 海南自由貿易港於12月18日投入運營幾天后：北京商務部對從歐洲進口到中國的乳製品徵收最高達42.7%的關稅。

在2025年的最後一天，商務部宣佈了所謂的“進口牛肉保障措施”，這是一套配額制度，並徵收高達55%的關稅，旨在限制進口。週二，商務部表示將對出口到日本的軍民兩用商品實施嚴格管制。

進口到海南的貨物，除非經過當地加工使其價值增加至少30%，否則不能免稅運往中國其他地區。

在海口新港, 一個海南省的巨型客貨碼頭, 船隻日夜不停地駛往鄰近的廣東省。但這個曾經是國內的交通樞紐，如今實際上已成為國際邊界。中國海關控制從海南流向中國其他地區的貨物，檢查貨車上是否有任何走私免稅貨物進入中國其他地區。

（待續）

特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(2/2)

Why Haven’t Trump’s Tariffs Had a Bigger Impact? (2/2)

Steep import taxes have raised prices and affected U.S. businesses, but not quite as much as expected. A new report offers some reasons.

By Ana Swanson

Jan. 3, 2026

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Because U.S. tariffs were low overall in the past, many companies had not bothered to declare that their goods were compliant with the trade pact when filing customs forms. But in 2025, roughly 90 percent of goods coming from Canada and Mexico were declared to be compliant, up from less than 50 percent the previous year.

Tariff evasion has also reduced the actual tariff rate that companies pay. Companies can pursue a variety of strategies, many of them illegal, to alter the information on customs forms about a product’s content, value or origin and pay a lower tariff than they are supposed to.

As concerns about affordability grow, the Trump administration may offer more exemptions and delays to planned tariffs. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump issued an executive order to delay a planned increase in tariffs on vanities, kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture for one year. The Commerce Department has also pulled back on a preliminary plan to impose tariffs on some Italian pasta imports, saying some pasta makers had addressed U.S. concerns about unfair practices. A final decision is expected in March.

Who pays the tariff?

This phenomenon does not mean that tariffs don’t burden U.S. companies and consumers. The researchers demonstrated that Americans were bearing the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, in contrast to what he and his advisers have claimed.

When the United States imposes a tariff, it’s the importer of record — usually a U.S. business — that must pay that money to the government. But who really bears the full cost of the tariff is a different question. The foreign factories that export products to the United States could absorb the cost if they reduce the prices they charge to American buyers to offset the tariff.

This is what the Trump administration argued would happen. But Ms. Gopinath and her co-author, Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago, calculated that U.S. importers, not foreign suppliers, were bearing the bulk of the cost. They estimated that 94 percent of tariff costs were “passed through” to U.S. firms in 2025. That compared with about 80 percent in 2018-19, when Mr. Trump imposed many tariffs on China.

Economists have only a few months of data with tariffs fully in effect, so much more will be known over the next year. But the tariffs have been significantly reshaping global trade. For example, China’s share of U.S. imports collapsed to 8 percent in late 2025, down from 22 percent at the end of 2017.

U.S. consumers and manufacturers are also paying higher costs. A working paper published in November by economists at Harvard Business School and elsewhere found that tariffs had pushed up the price of imported goods by roughly twice as much as domestic ones.

Ms. Gopinath and Mr. Neiman also traced the effect of tariffs on U.S. manufacturers, which often depend on foreign parts and metals. They found that companies making heavy-duty trucks, construction vehicles, cars and car parts, agricultural implements, and oil and gas machinery were among the most affected by higher tariffs.

“The logic was if foreign firms wished to sell to the mightiest consumer market in the world, they would have to pay a price,” Ms. Gopinath said. “In reality, the price has been borne by U.S. firms, and not by foreign firms.”

Translation

特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(2/2)

高額進口關稅推高了物價，影響了美國企業，但其影響程度卻不如預期。一份新的報告對此給了一些解釋。

（繼續）

由於過去美國關稅總體較低，許多公司在提交海關申報單時並未費心申報其商品符合貿易協定。但到2025年，來自加拿大和墨西哥的商品中約有90%受申報協議規定，這高於前一年的少於50%。

逃稅行為也降低了企業實際繳納的關稅稅率。企業可以採取各種策略（其中許多是非法的）來篡改海關申報單上關於產品成分、價值或原產地的信息，從而繳納低於應繳的關稅。

隨著人們對商品價格承受能力的擔憂日益加劇，特朗普政府可能會對計劃中的關稅提供更多豁免和延期。週三，特朗普簽署了一項行政命令，將原計劃對梳妝台、櫥櫃和軟墊家具提高的關稅推遲一年。美國商務部也撤回了對部分意大利麵進口產品徵收關稅的初步計劃，並表示一些意大利麵生產商已就美國方面提出的不公平貿易行為的擔憂作出回應。最終決定預計3月公佈。

誰來繳關稅？

這種現象並不意味著關稅不會給美國企業和消費者帶來負擔。研究人員證明，與特朗普及其顧問的說法相反，美國民眾正在承擔特朗普關稅的成本。

當美國徵收關稅時，登記進口商 - 通常是美國企業 - 必須向政府支付這筆費用。但究竟誰承擔了關稅的全部成本，則是另一個問題。如果向美國出口產品的外國工廠降低向美國買家的售價以抵銷關稅，那麼這些成本就由它們自己承擔。

這正是特朗普政府所聲稱的情況。但Gopinath女士及其合著者、芝加哥大學的Brent Neiman算得出，承擔大部分成本的是美國進口商，而非外國供應商。他們估計，到2025年，94%的關稅成本將「轉嫁」給美國企業。相較之下，在2018-2019年特朗普對中國加徵多項關稅期間，這一比例約為80%。

經濟學家目前只有幾個月的關稅全面生效後的數據，因此未來一年將會有更多資訊公佈。但關稅已經顯著重塑了全球貿易格局。例如，到2025年底，中國在美國進口中所佔的份額驟降至8%，而2017年底這一比例為22%。

美國消費者和製造商也正在承擔更高的成本。哈佛商學院和其他機構的經濟學家在11月發表的工作論文中發現，關稅使進口商品的價格上漲幅度, 約為國內商品的兩倍。

Gopinath女士和Neiman也追蹤了關稅對美國製造商的影響，這些製造商通常依賴進口零件和金屬。他們發現，重型卡車、工程車輛、汽車及零件、農具以及石油和天然氣機械製造商受高關稅的影響最大。

Gopinath說: 「在邏輯上，如果外國公司想向全球最大的消費市場銷售產品，就必須付出代價」; 「但實際上，這個代價是由美國公司承擔的，而不是外國公司」。

So, the effects of Trump’s taxes increase have not been felt as strongly as some experts predicted. Economists explain that the tariff rate importers have paid is significantly lower than the tariff figures that Mr. Trump announced. The reasons include exemptions for certain countries and industries, rates are lowered for some goods by the time they arrive in the U.S., and evasion of the rules by some companies. At the same time, some researchers have demonstrated that Americans are bearing the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, in contrast to what he and his advisers have claimed.

特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(1/2)

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Why Haven’t Trump’s Tariffs Had a Bigger Impact? (1/2)

Steep import taxes have raised prices and affected U.S. businesses, but not quite as much as expected. A new report offers some reasons.

By Ana Swanson

Jan. 3, 2026

President Trump raised the taxes that the United States charges on imports last year to levels not seen in a century.

Prices of goods have increased as a result, and businesses that depend on imported products and supplies have struggled, with some closing their doors. Still, the effects have not been felt as strongly as some experts predicted after early April when Mr. Trump announced double-digit tariffs on imports from countries worldwide.

A new working paper from economists at Harvard and the University of Chicago helps explain why. It shows that the tariff rate importers have paid is significantly lower than the tariff figures that Mr. Trump announced. The reasons include exemptions for certain countries and industries, rates that were lowered for some goods by the time they arrived in the U.S. and evasion of the rules by some companies.

By analyzing the government’s tariff revenue and the value of imports, the economists concluded that the actual U.S. tariff rate was 14.1 percent at the end of September.

The figure is about half the tariff rate that the administration had officially announced. The average trade-weighted tariff rate for the United States was nominally 27.4 percent in September, the authors estimated, down from a peak of 32.8 percent in April.

“The actual tariffs are much lower than what were announced, and that is one of the reasons why the effects have not been as big as feared,” said Gita Gopinath, a Harvard economist and former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

One factor was an exemption for products that were on boats en route to the United States when tariffs were announced. Shipping goods by ocean to U.S. ports often takes weeks, meaning the tariffs that businesses paid rose more slowly than what Mr. Trump announced throughout the year.

The exemptions for products and countries included semiconductors and some products containing them, a move widely seen as a favor to tech executives. Though officials said they would announce more tariffs on chips and electronics, those have not come.

As a result, companies paid an actual tariff rate of 9 percent on chips brought into the United States, the authors calculated, far below the tariff level for other commodities. And exports from places that make a lot of semiconductors, like Taiwan, faced a far lower actual rate (8 percent) than the official one (28 percent).

Canada and Mexico also received significant exemptions from the nominally high tariffs that Mr. Trump put on them last year. Many goods that are mostly made in North America qualify for zero tariffs under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed in his first term.

(to be continued)

Translation

特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(1/2)

高額進口關稅推高了物價，影響了美國企業，但其影響程度卻不如預期。一份新的報告對此給了一些解釋。

去年，特朗普總統將美國對進口商品徵收的關稅提高到了百年來未有過的高水平。

商品價格因此上漲，依賴進口產品和物資的企業舉步維艱，有些企業甚至倒閉。然而，其影響並沒有像一些專家在4月初特朗普宣布對全球進口商品加徵兩位數關稅後預測的那樣強烈。

哈佛大學和芝加哥大學的經濟學家撰寫的一份新的工作報告解釋了其中的原因。報告顯示，進口商實際支付的關稅稅率遠低於特朗普宣佈的稅率。原因包括某些國家和行業的豁免、部分商品在抵達美國時稅率有所降低，以及一些公司規避了相關規定。

經濟學家透過分析政府的關稅收入和進口額，得出結論：截至9月底，美國的實際關稅稅率為14.1%。

這一數字約為政府官方公佈關稅稅率的一半。作者估計，9月美國貿易加權平均關稅稅率名義上為27.4%，低於4月32.8%的高峰。

哈佛大學經濟學家、國際貨幣基金組織前第一副總裁Gita Gopinath表示:「實際關稅遠低於公佈的水平，這也是其影響沒有預期那麼大的原因之一」。

其中一個原因是，關稅宣佈時，正在運往美國的船隻上的貨物獲得了豁免。海運貨物到美國港口通常需要數週時間，這意味著企業實際支付的關稅提高速度比特朗普年內宣佈的速度要慢。

此次豁免的產品和國家包括半導體及有這類部件的製品，此舉普遍被視為對科技公司高階主管的優待。儘管官員表示將宣佈對晶片和電子產品加徵更多關稅，但至今仍未出台。

因此，據作者計算企業實際支付的晶片進口關稅稅率為9%，遠低於其他商品的關稅水準。而來自台灣等半導體生產大國的出口產品，實際關稅稅率（8%）也遠低於官方稅率（28%）。

加拿大和墨西哥也獲得了特朗普去年對其徵收的名義高額關稅的顯著豁免。許多主要產自北美的商品, 根據特朗普在第一任期內簽署的《美墨加協定》可享有零關稅待遇。

（待續）

Note:

1. The average trade-weighted tariff rate (平均貿易加權關稅率) for the United States is the average U.S. import tariff rate, where each tariff is weighted by the share of total U.S. imports to which it applies. In plain-language explanation it means that instead of simply averaging all tariff rates equally, this measure gives more importance to tariffs applied to goods the U.S. imports a lot, and less importance to tariffs on rarely imported goods. (ChatGPT)

China's December manufacturing business sentiment index surpasses the benchmark for the first time in nine months.

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

中国 12月製造業の景況感示す指数 9か月ぶりに節目上回る

2025年12月31日午後0時41分

中国

中国の12月の製造業の景況感を示す指数は、景気判断の節目となる「50」を9か月ぶりに上回りました。アメリカが11月、中国に対する追加関税の一部を引き下げたことなどで、企業の生産や新規の受注に関する指数が改善したことが主な要因です。

中国の国家統計局が製造業3200社を対象に調査した12月の製造業PMI＝購買担当者景況感指数は、50.1となりました。

11月と比べて0.9ポイント改善し、景気のよしあしを判断する節目となる「50」を9か月ぶりに上回りました。

これは米中首脳会談を受けて、アメリカが11月、中国に対する追加関税の一部を引き下げたことなどで、企業の生産や新規の受注に関する指数が改善したことが主な要因です。

企業の規模別でみますと、

▽大企業が50.8と、節目の「50」を上回った一方、

▽中規模な企業が49.8、

▽小規模な企業が48.6と、節目を下回りました。

このほか、サービス業など非製造業の指数は、50.2となり、2か月ぶりに「50」を上回りました。

ただ、中国では、不動産不況の長期化などを背景に国内需要の停滞が続いていて、中国政府が今後、効果的な消費刺激策などを打ち出し、内需拡大につなげられるかが焦点となります。

Translation

China's December manufacturing business sentiment index surpasses the benchmark for the first time in nine months.

December 31, 2025, 12:41 PM

China

China's December manufacturing business sentiment index surpassed the benchmark of 50 for the first time in nine months. This was primarily due to improvements in indices relating to corporate production and new orders, following the U.S.'s partial reduction of additional tariffs on China in November.

China's National Bureau of Statistics surveyed 3,200 manufacturing companies and reported a December Purchasing Managers' Sentiment Index (PMI) of 50.1.

This represented a 0.9-point improvement from November, surpassing the benchmark of "50" for the first time in nine months. That was a key number in judging good or bad of an economy,

This improvement was primarily due to improvements in indices relating to corporate production and new orders, following the U.S.'s partial reduction of additional tariffs on China in November as a result of a U.S.-China summit.

Looking at the index by company size:

▽Large companies surpassed the 50-point mark at 50.8,

▽medium-sized companies at 49.8,

▽small companies at 48.6, below the mark too.

In addition, the index for non-manufacturing industries such as services was 50.2, exceeding 50 for the first time in two months.

However, domestic demand in China continued to stagnate due to factors such as the prolonged real estate slump, and from now on, the focus would be on whether the Chinese government could implement effective measures to stimulate consumption and expand domestic demand.

So, China's December manufacturing business sentiment index has surpassed the benchmark of 50 for the first time in nine months. Meanwhile, domestic demand in China continues to stagnate due to factors such as the prolonged real estate slump. I am interested in knowing whether other new government policies can stimulate manufacturing and business sectors in the future, e.g. a new duty-free zone in Hainan province.

2025年讓我們困惑的10個科技術語（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

10 Pieces of Tech Jargon That Confused Us in 2025 (2/2)

Here’s a cheat sheet for decoding this year’s A.I.-driven tech lingo, from RAG to superintelligence.

By Brian X. Chen - Brian X. Chen is The Times’s lead consumer technology writer and the author of Tech Fix, a column about the social implications of the tech we use.

Dec. 30, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

(continue)

RAG

This acronym stands for retrieval-augmented generation, a technique to improve the accuracy of chatbots. It involves connecting a chatbot with external sources of information, such as an encyclopedia, a history book or a news article. It’s an off-putting acronym, but think of it as a rag that can clean up occasionally messy answers spewed by chatbots.

Multimodal

This tongue twister of a word describes technology that can answer your questions about images, text and audio files that you share with a chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini. You will hear this word more often in the coming years when companies release smart glasses that include cameras and microphones, enabling an A.I. assistant to give you information about what you see and hear.

NPU

Most consumers probably wouldn’t care whether or not a computer shipped with a neural processing unit, a chip that speeds up A.I. apps that generate text and images. Nonetheless, Microsoft, Dell and Lenovo are highlighting NPU chips to market their newest laptops. The chips are simply faster and more energy-efficient, as new computer chips tend to be.

Related: TPU, or tensor processing unit, a term that Google uses to describe the neural processors it relies on in data centers to make A.I. software work.

Vibecoding

Chatbots like Claude and Gemini can automatically generate lines of code, making it possible for inexperienced programmers to write simple programs by typing a prompt like, “I want to create an app to choose an outfit from my closet.” Enthusiasts have called the ritual “vibecoding,” and the results have been hit or miss.

Agentic

When a chatbot does something for you, like book a flight, techies call this “agentic,” referring to the way chatbots can act as agents, similar to the people who book your travel. The clunky word has gained traction in the last few years, but “virtual assistant,” the term used to describe older tools that tried to help you (e.g., Siri and Alexa), was less cringe.

Magic

When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007, he said the touch screen “works like magic,” referring to how it worked very well. This year, Google awkwardly used the word for a new A.I. tool it released for smartphones, Magic Cue. That piece of software does things for you automatically — such as look up your flight itinerary when a friend asks you what time you are landing.

But Magic Cue and similar A.I. technologies that do things for you automatically work when you share large amounts of personal data, like your contact list, location, messages and email. There’s nothing magical about that at all.

Translation

2025年讓我們困惑的10個科技術語（2/2）

 以下是解讀今年人工智能驅動的科技術語的速查表，從RAG到超級智能。

 （繼續）

  RAG (檢索增強生成)

這個縮寫代表檢索增強生成（retrieval-augmented generation），是一種提高聊天機器人準確性的技術。它涉及將聊天機器人與外部資訊來源連接起來，例如百科全書、歷史書籍或新聞文章。這個縮寫聽起來有點拗口，但你可以把它想像成一塊抹布，用來清理聊天機器人偶爾吐出的混亂答案。

Multimodal (多模態)

這個拗口的詞描述的是一種聊天機器人（例如 ChatGPT 或 Gemini）能夠回答你關於你與它分享的圖像、文字和音訊檔案的問題的技術。未來幾年，隨著各大公司推出有內置相機和麥克風的智能眼鏡，你會更頻繁地聽到這個詞。這些智能眼鏡可以讓人工智能助理為你提供關於你所見所聞的資訊。

 NPU (神經處理單元)

大多數消費者可能並不關心電腦是否配備了神經處理單元（Neural Processing Unit） (NPU) ，這種晶片可以加速生成文字和圖像的人工智能應用。然而，微軟、戴爾和聯想都在大力宣傳其最新筆記型電腦的 NPU 晶片。這些晶片只僅僅加快速度、提高能源效率，正如大多數新型電腦晶片一樣。

相關術語：TPU，即張量處理單元，是Google用來描述其數據中心中用於令人工智能軟件運行的神經處理器的用語。

直覺編碼 (Vibecoding)

像 Claude 和 Gemini 這樣的聊天機器人可以自動產生程式碼，讓經驗不足的程式設計師也能透過輸入諸如「我想創建一個應用，從我的衣櫥裡挑選一套衣服」之類的提示來編寫簡單的程式。愛好者們將這種做法稱為“直覺編碼”，但其效果卻參差。

 Agentic (代理化)

當聊天機器人為你做某事，例如預訂機票時，技術人員稱之為“代理化”，指的是聊天機器人可以像代理人一樣行事，類似於為你預訂旅行的人。這個略為笨拙的詞在過去幾年逐漸流行起來，但用來描述那些試圖幫助你的舊工具（例如 Siri 和 Alexa）所用的詞語「虛擬助理」則顯得不那么生硬。

Magic (魔法)

2007 年，當喬布斯發佈第一代 iPhone 時，他說觸控螢幕感到 “有魔法一樣的效果” ，指的是它非常好用。今年，Google笨拙僵硬地用這個詞來形容一款新的人工智能產品。它發佈了一款適用於智慧型手機的新型人工智能工具並為 叫它為Magic Cue。這款軟件可以自動為你完成一些任務 - 例如，當朋友問你的航班什麼時候着陸時，它會自動找到你的航班行程。

但是，Magic Cue 和類似的 AI 技術之所以能夠自動為你完成這些任務，是因為你分享了大量的個人數據，例如你的聯絡人清單、位置資訊、簡訊和電子郵件。這根本談不上什麼神奇之處。

So, in recent years we can see more and more superfluous adjectives, buzzwords, acronyms and abbreviations such as superintelligence, RAG and TPU. Apparently, it is the artificial intelligence boom that creates a fresh glossary of lingo. For average AI users, the buzzwords make what is happening with our personal technology even more confusing. This article is helpful in decoding some of the most used tech jargon of 2025.

2025年讓我們困惑的10個科技術語（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

10 Pieces of Tech Jargon That Confused Us in 2025 (1/2)

Here’s a cheat sheet for decoding this year’s A.I.-driven tech lingo, from RAG to superintelligence.

By Brian X. Chen - Brian X. Chen is The Times’s lead consumer technology writer and the author of Tech Fix, a column about the social implications of the tech we use.

Dec. 30, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

As a tech journalist for the last 20 years, I’ve had a front-row seat to the slow death of the English language, driven by the engineers and marketers of Silicon Valley who use clunky abbreviations, awkward jargon and meaningless superlatives to describe the latest innovations.

Let’s chat about U.G.C.! Did you know Google’s assistant can now have a two-way conversation? This new smartphone is shockingly, if not stunningly, faster than the last one.

Lately, the relentless verbiage seems to have gotten worse, with more superfluous adjectives, buzzwords, acronyms and abbreviations — like superintelligence, RAG and TPU — added to the list at an alarming pace.

The obvious culprit is the artificial intelligence boom that has upended the tech industry, birthing a fresh glossary of lingo. Tellingly, the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster chose “slop” as its word of the year, referring to the A.I.-generated junk that polluted our social media feeds.

For consumers, the buzzwords make what is happening with our personal technology extra confusing. Here’s a cheat sheet for decoding some of the most parroted tech jargon of 2025, along with terms that have endured over the years.

A.I. Factory

Tech companies like Nvidia and Dell have named their newest data centers “A.I. factories.” Companies say they are special data centers that need vast amounts of storage and power to make A.I. technology work. But historically, tech giants have always made improvements to giant computing facilities to support new technologies, so A.I. factories are, simply put, data centers.

U.G.C.

No, it’s not a shoe brand. It stands for user-generated content, and the abbreviation has been popular lately among Google employees working on A.I. search technology. In plain speak, they are referring to social media posts, such as a TikToker talking about his favorite burger restaurant.

A.G.I.

For years, companies including OpenAI, Google and Amazon have said their goal is to achieve A.G.I., meaning artificial general intelligence, a technology with humanlike cognition. But for decades, plain old “artificial intelligence” has referred to technology mimicking the human brain. The elusive nature of A.G.I. raises confusion about whether other tech products labeled “A.I.” are artificially intelligent at all.

Superintelligence

Even though it’s unclear when, if ever, the tech industry will achieve A.G.I., Mark Zuckerberg of Meta is already talking about the next phase. When A.I. technology gets so powerful that it can give us data about everything we see and hear in real time, humanity will achieve superintelligence, he predicts. (In September, when Mr. Zuckerberg publicly demonstrated a pair of computerized glasses that could one day deliver superintelligence, Meta’s A.I. got stumped when asked how to make a steak sauce.)

(to be continued)

Translation

2025年讓我們困惑的10個科技術語（1/2）

以下是解讀今年人工智能驅動的科技術語的速查表，從RAG到超級智能，應有盡有。

身為一名從業20年的科技記者，我親眼目睹了英語的緩慢消亡，而這背後是矽谷的工程師和行銷人員，他們使用笨拙的縮寫、生硬的術語和毫無意義的 ’最高級別’一詞來描述最新的創作。

我們來講講 ‘用者生成內容’（UGC）吧！你知不知道谷歌的助理現在可以進行雙向對話了嗎？這款新智能型手機的速度快得驚人，令人嘆為觀止, 比上一代更快。

最近，冗長的術語似乎愈演愈烈，各種多餘的形容詞、流行語、首字母縮略詞和縮寫 - 比如“超級智能”、“RAG”和“TPU” - 以驚人的速度湧現。

罪魁禍首顯然是顛覆科技產業的人工智能熱潮，它催生了一套全新的行內語。值得注意的是，字典出版商韋氏字典將「slop」（垃圾）選為年度詞彙，指的是充斥我們社群媒體的人工智能產生的垃圾訊息。

對消費者而言，這些流行語讓我們對個人科技的發展更加困惑。以下是一份速查表，幫助你解讀2025年最常被提及的一些科技術語，以及一些多年來一直沿用的術語。

 A.I. Factory (人工智能工廠)

像英偉達和戴爾這樣的科技公司將他們最新的數據中心命名為「人工智能工廠」。這些公司聲稱，它們是特殊的資料中心，需要大量的儲存空間和電力來運行人工智能技術。但從歷史上看，科技巨頭們一直在改進其龐大的運算設施以支援新技術，因此，人工智能工廠說白了就是數據中心。

UGC (用者生成內容)

別誤會，這不是鞋類品牌。它代表用者生成內容（User-generated Content），這個縮寫最近在Google從事人工智能搜尋技術的員工中很流行。簡單來說，他們指的是社交媒體帖子，例如TikTok用戶分享他最喜歡的漢堡包店。

AGI (人工通用智能)

 多年來，包括OpenAI、Google和亞馬遜在內的公司一直表示，他們的目標是實現AGI，即一般的人工通用智能，一種具有類似人類認知能力的技術。但幾十年來，簡單通用的「人工智能」指的是模仿人腦的技術。人工通用智能（AGI）一詞的複雜性和神秘性，引發了人們對其他被貼上「人工智能」（AI）標籤的科技產品是否真的有人工智能而感困惑。

Superintelligence (超級智能)

儘管科技業何時（甚至是否）能夠實現人工普遍智能尚不明朗，但Meta公司的Mark Zuckerberg已經開始談論下一階段。他預測，當人工智能技術強大到能夠即時提供我們所見所聞的一切數據時，人類將達至超級智能。 （在9月，Zuckerberg公開展示了一副未來可能實現超級智能的智能眼鏡，但當被問及如何製作牛排醬時，Meta公司的人工智能卻答不出來。 ）

（待續）

Note:

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide range of tasks, at a level comparable to a human. This is different from most AI systems today, which are narrow AI (also called ANI – Artificial Narrow Intelligence). (ChatGPT)

Narrow AI (ANI) is designed for specific tasks, examples are: voice assistants, image recognition, recommendation systems. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) can reason, learn, and adapt across many domains. It can solve new problems without task-specific training, it could understand context, common sense, and abstract ideas. (ChatGPT)

美國科技巨擘投資數十億美元，數據中心建設熱潮席捲印度（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Data Center Surge Reaches India as American Tech Giants Invest Billions (2/2)

Megacities in southern India are attracting enormous investments to help build artificial intelligence infrastructure to serve the world’s most data-hungry country.

By Alex Travelli and Pragati K.B. - Reporting from New Delhi

Dec. 26, 2025

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India’s economic strengths and weaknesses look like a mismatch for the A.I. investments. The data centers will require cheap land, abundant electricity and water. India’s whole territory is packed with farmland, and much of it suffers from unreliable power grids and scarce water supply. It does need jobs for a huge and semi-idle labor force, but data centers require minimal staffing.

But India doesn’t want to miss out on the A.I. gold rush. It also doesn’t want to rely on data servers overseas.

Since 2018, India has been weighing laws that would require digital functions to be based on servers in India. For national security’s sake, the government already insists that banks and WhatsApp, which Meta owns, keep their data local. Mr. Mukherjee said the possibility of officials’ widening those demands was motivating foreign companies to install servers within India.

Another reason to keep the data centers closer to the people who will be using them is that data slows the farther it has to travel. Delays of even milliseconds between faraway servers can pile up during complex processing, causing whole systems to lag. Until a few years ago, most of India’s data was stored on servers in Singapore, 1,800 miles away across the Bay of Bengal.

The data centers for Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta will join a growing number of smaller centers spread between India’s biggest urban areas. Most are along the coasts, where they can be connected to undersea cables.

Luring giant plants to Hyderabad, an inland city of 11 million, required a feat of salesmanship on the part of the local government. That job fell to Jayesh Ranjan, a special secretary in charge of tech and investment for the state who devised India’s first data-center policy in 2016.

Hyderabad’s first data centers, which were built before A.I. started demanding more capacity, are already saturated. Now there are four.

Industrial-grade electricity is hard to come by in most of India. But Hyderabad’s data parks are connected to multiple energy sources and flooded with abundant power at wholesale prices. India’s electricity grid is balky, but in the aggregate it now generates more power than it needs and most of it is renewable. American electricity costs an average of 18 cents a kilowatt-hour, but Hyderabad’s data centers pay only 7 cents.

Mr. Ranjan said the country’s first data center to run on a gigawatt’s worth of power would be in Hyderabad. TPG, an American asset manager, is working with India’s Tata Group to build it and other A.I.-focused facilities around the country.

Another challenge for building data centers in India is access to water. In 2019, water from two rivers was redirected by a gigantic dam to irrigate most of the state around Hyderabad. And there is still plenty left for the thirsty new data centers, which consume tons of water to cool their servers.

Translation

美國科技巨擘投資數十億美元，數據中心建設熱潮席捲印度（2/2）

印度南部的大城市正吸引巨額投資，用於建立人工智能基礎設施，以滿足這個全球數據需求量最大的國家的需求。

（繼續）

印度的經濟優勢和劣勢似乎與人工智能投資並不匹配。資料數據中心需要廉價的土地、充足的電力和水資源。印度的國土遍布農田，其中許多地方電力供應不穩定，水資源匱乏。印度確實需要為龐大且半閒置的勞動力提供就業機會，但數據中心需要很少工作人員。

然而，印度不想錯過這場人工智能淘金熱。它也不想依賴海外的數據伺服器。

自2018年以來，印度一直在考慮立法，要求所有數位功能都必須基於印度境內的伺服器。出於國家安全考慮，政府已經要求銀行和Meta旗下的WhatsApp等公司將資料保留在本地。Mukherjee表示，官員可能擴大這些要求，以促使外國公司在印度境內部署伺服器。

將數據中心靠近使用者的另一個原因是，數據傳輸距離越遠，速度越慢。即使是遠距離伺服器之間幾毫秒的延遲，在複雜的處理過程中也會累積，導致整個系統運作緩慢。直至幾年前，印度的大部分資料都儲存在1800英里（約2900公里）外的新加坡的伺服器上，隔著孟加拉灣。

Google、微軟、亞馬遜和Meta的數據中心將加入印度各大城市地區日益增長的小型數據中心行列。這些數據中心大多位於沿海地區，可以連接到海底光纜。

要吸引大型中心落腳Hyderabad這座擁有1,100萬人口的內陸城市，當地政府需要展現出非凡的遊說才能。這項任務落在了Jayesh Ranjan身上，他是該邦負責科技和投資的特別秘書，也是印度首個數據中心政策的製定者，該政策於2016年出台。

Hyderabad的首批數據中心建於人工智能開始對容量需求激增之前，如今已基本飽和。現在，該市共有四個數據中心。

在印度大部分地區，工業級電力供應緊張。但Hyderabad的數據園區接入了多種能源，並以批發價格獲得充足的電力供應。印度的電網雖然存在一些問題，但整體而言，其發電量已超過自身需求，而且大部分電力來自再生能源。美國的平均電價為每千瓦時18美仙，而Hyderabad的數據中心只需支付7美仙。

Ranjan表示，印度首個耗電量達千兆瓦的數據中心將落腳Hyderabad。美國資產管理公司TPG正與印度塔塔集團合作，在印度各地建置此數據中心及其他人工智能相關設施。

在印度建造資據中心面臨的另一個主要挑戰是水資源短缺。 2019年，一座巨型水壩截流了兩條河流的水流，用於灌溉Hyderabad週邊的大部分地區。即便如此，仍有充足的水源可供這些耗水量龐大的新建數據中心使用，它們需要消耗大量水來冷卻伺服器。

So, new investment to build data centers, cloud computing and other hardware has come to India. India’s economic strengths and weaknesses look like a mismatch for the A.I. investments, yet India doesn’t want to miss out on the A.I. gold rush. It also doesn’t want to rely on data servers overseas. India now generates more electricity than it needs and most of it is renewable. In 2019, water from two rivers was redirected by a gigantic dam to irrigate most of the state around Hyderabad, and there is still plenty left to meet new demands. Apparently, Hyderabad is a good location to build huge data centers.

美國科技巨擘投資數十億美元，數據中心建設熱潮席捲印度（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the flowing:

Data Center Surge Reaches India as American Tech Giants Invest Billions (1/2)

Megacities in southern India are attracting enormous investments to help build artificial intelligence infrastructure to serve the world’s most data-hungry country.

By Alex Travelli and Pragati K.B. - Reporting from New Delhi

Dec. 26, 2025

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, was striding across a stage in New Delhi, extolling his company’s $17.5 billion investment in artificial intelligence and the benefits it would bring to his native country’s 1.4 billion people. While he was speaking, Amazon made a rival announcement, promising to throw $35 billion into A.I.-driven projects across India.

A flood of money for data centers, cloud computing and other hardware has come to India. Two months before the near-simultaneous Microsoft-Amazon announcements, Google committed $15 billion to data centers in partnerships with two of India’s biggest conglomerates, the Adani Group and Bharti Airtel.

That $67.5 billion, to be spent over the next five years, is just the crest of a wave. A fourth American tech giant, Meta, is having a plant built near Google’s, as are India’s other biggest industrial houses, Reliance and Tata.

“This is going to be one of the largest single-sector investments that India’s ever seen,” said Somnath Mukherjee, chief investment officer at ASK Wealth Advisors in Mumbai.

These investments are vast in proportion to everything except for other A.I.-related investments. Trillions of dollars are at stake in this boom worldwide. In India, companies see a market with lots of room to run.

India hosts nearly 20 percent of the world’s data but only 3 percent of its storage. The United States has vastly more data centers than India, but India’s population, already the largest on the planet, is still growing, and its economy is expanding even faster.

“India is the largest consumer of data in the world, but with barely 5 percent of American data capacity,” Mr. Mukherjee said.

The enormous bets on India by Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta underscore the seemingly limitless reaches of the A.I. boom. President Trump stunned India with 50 percent tariffs this summer, casting a pall over the friendly and longstanding economic relationship between the countries. Negotiators from Washington and New Delhi are still trying to find some accommodation on trade. Yet artificial intelligence money plows ahead.

(to be continued)

Translation

美國科技巨擘投資數十億美元，資料中心建設熱潮席捲印度（1/2）

印度南部的大城市正吸引巨額投資，用於建立人工智能基礎設施，以滿足這個全球數據需求量最大的國家的需要。

微軟執行長Satya Nadella在新德里的一個台上侃侃而談，盛讚其公司在人工智能領域175億美元的投資，以及這項投資將為印度14億人口帶來的福祉。同時間，亞馬遜作出帶競爭性的宣佈, 將在印度投資350億美元用於人工智能計劃。

大量資金湧入印度，用於建造數據中心、雲端運算和其他硬體設施。在微軟和亞馬遜幾乎同時宣布合作消息的兩個月前，Google承諾與印度兩大企業集團 - 阿達尼集團(Adani Grou) 和巴蒂電信 (Bharti Airtel ) - 合作，投資150億美元建造數據中心。

未來五年內，共有675億美元投資，但這只是冰山一角。第四家美國科技巨頭Meta正在谷歌附近建造數據中心，印度其他兩大工業集團 - 信實集團 (Reliance)和塔塔 (Tata)集團 - 也正在進行類似的投資。

孟買ASK財富顧問公司首席投資長Somnath Mukherjee表示:「這將是印度有史以來規模最大的單一產業投資之一」。

對比其他人工智能相關投資規模除外，這些投資是規模龐大的。全球範圍內，數兆美元的資金正湧入這一領域。在印度，企業看到了巨大的發展空間。

印度擁有全球近20%的數據，但其儲存容量僅佔全球的3%。美國的數據中心數量遠超印度，但印度的人口已是全球最多，且仍在持續增加，經濟成長速度甚至更快。

Mukherjee說: 「印度是全球最大的數據消費國，但其數據容量卻只有美國的5%左右」。

微軟、亞馬遜、谷歌和Meta等巨頭對印度的巨額投資，凸顯了人工智能熱潮看似無限的潛力。今年夏天，特朗普總統出人意料地對印度加徵了50%的關稅，為兩國間友好而長久的經濟關係蒙上了陰影。華盛頓和新德里的談判代表仍在努力尋求貿易上的妥協方案。然而，人工智能領域的資金已領先地湧入。

（待續）