China expands solar, AI export controls & GlobalFoundries New York fabs, Japan financing - Tech News (Oct 18, 2026)

Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - SurveyMonkey, Using AI to surface insights faster and reduce manual analysis time - https://get.surveymonkey.com/tad - Invest Like the Pros with StockMVP - https://www.stock-mvp.com/?via=ron - Prezi: Create AI presentations fast - https://try.prezi.com/automated_daily Today's topics: China expands solar, AI export controls - China proposed adding 12 photovoltaic technologies, including perovskite, tandem solar cells, thin wafers and polysilicon production, to its export-control list, alongside broader AI and biotechnology controls citing national security. GlobalFoundries New York fabs, Japan financing - GlobalFoundries plans two new semiconductor plants in New York backed by $21 billion in Japanese financing, expanding US chip manufacturing and strengthening US-Japan supply chains. Chip stocks' longest losing streak - US semiconductor stocks fell about 16% over eight sessions, their longest losing streak since 2008, as the Nasdaq and S&P 500 dropped amid doubts about AI spending and financing costs. Microsoft exits Nscale Essex deal - Microsoft reportedly withdrew from an agreement with British cloud provider Nscale for a data center in Loughton, Essex, raising questions about AI data-center demand and financing. States sue OpenAI over children - Several US states sued OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT harms children and deceives adults, increasing legal scrutiny of generative AI safety, marketing and liability. Florida wins social media ruling - Florida won a court ruling allowing it to enforce its law restricting children's social-media access, with implications for age verification and parental consent laws nationwide. Brazil court orders Meta neutrality - A Brazilian electoral court ordered Meta to treat Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro equally before the October 25 presidential runoff, as Meta denied political favoritism. Meta drops news AI-training language - Meta revised its commercial terms to remove language about using news websites to train AI models, amid publisher disputes over scraping, licensing and compensation. Russian satellite shadows US satellite - A Russian satellite was tracked closely following a US-owned commercial satellite linked to a network supporting Ukraine's military, highlighting orbital surveillance and space secu