Trillions of dollars hang in the balance of two questions that dominated this year and loom perilously large over the next. “Will the artificial intelligence bubble burst?” and “Will China beat the US?”

Step aside, artificial intelligence. Another transformative technology with the potential to reshape industries and reorder geopolitical power is finally moving out of the lab: quantum.

Is China’s artificial intelligence sector finally taking the plunge and shifting away from Nvidia Corp. in favor of homegrown chips?

China’s current AI frenzy represents the best and worst of classic capitalism: The competition propels innovation at a rapid clip, but not all of the companies will survive over the next five or 10 years.

It’s a story that has played out many times in the history of China’s tech sector. Notoriously fierce competition means that whenever a new craze comes along, scores of rivals emerge ready to pounce.

If you log onto Chinese social media these days, you may encounter many young people expressing the “involution” or neijuan mentality. It’s become a buzzword for a generation of college students and recent graduates beaten down by society’s relentless competition, and roughly translates to rolling inwards.

The Chinese artificial intelligence startup that rocked global markets earlier this year with its low-cost and high-performance AI models has outlined a potential path to major profitability.

Apple Inc.’s China business kicked off the Year of the Snake inauspiciously.

DeepSeek didn’t come out of nowhere. But it seemed to catch Silicon Valley and global investors by surprise this week, to the tune of billions of dollars in stock market value.

Indonesia isn’t taking a step back from its hardball approach to Apple Inc. The showdown has turned into quite a spectacle, but it’s unlikely the wins will be sustainable.

A messy, ongoing tech breakup between the US and China is forcing a rethink about what the industry might look like for consumers in a decoupled world.

Recommend reading that provides a bed of knowledge for the key themes we think will define 2025. Ours differs from other lists you might see elsewhere at this time of year in that we focus on relevance rather than recency, though there are new books here, too.

ByteDance Ltd.’s options for TikTok in the US are looking increasingly desolate, as the tech war between Washington and Beijing boils over.

Vietnam may be quickly outgrowing its role in the global tech industry as the attractive manufacturing sidepiece to China.

Earlier this month, OpenAI released its most-advanced models yet, saying they had the ability to “reason” and solve complex math and coding problems. The industry-leading startup, valued at some $150 billion, also acknowledged that they raised the risk artificial intelligence could be misused to create biological weapons.

After languishing for three decades, Japan is on the cusp of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revitalize its economy through tech innovation and entrepreneurship.

Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” mantra propelled tech innovation for the internet age. In the era of artificial intelligence, it should take a leaf out of Japan’s playbook and slow down.

It’s a rallying cry that every government can get behind. As artificial intelligence seeps into more facets of society — including critical industries like defense, healthcare and financial services — countries want more control over the underlying technology.